La transferencia en su disparidad subjetiva, su pretendida situacin y

sus excursiones tcnicas

(1960-1961)

Artculos psicoanalticos citados por Lacan en su seminario

Nota bene: esta recopilacin es una transcripcin de los artculos originales, su
objetivo es ser un apoyo en la lectura de los seminarios de Jacques Lacan. Se ha
tratado de realizarla con la mxima fidelidad posible, sin embargo, dado que es una
transcripcin puede incluir errores involuntarios, por lo cual urgimos a los lectores que
quieran citar estos textos a consultar directamente la fuente original, ya sea en las
revistas en papel o a travs del CD-ROM generado para ese propsito por la
Asociacin Psicoanaltica Americana, y que puede ser consultado y/o adquirido a
travs de su sitio de internet.
Dado que el sitio de e-diciones de la cole lacanienne de psychanalyse es gratuito, no
pretende lucrar de ninguna manera con estas transcripciones; su finalidad es
nicamente contribuir al estudio crtico y documentado del psicoanlisis, en particular
de la enseanza de Jacques Lacan.

INDICE

Klein, M. (1952) The origins of transference. Int. J. Psycho-anal., 33:433

Nunberg, H. (1951) Transference and reality. Int. J. Psycho-anal., 32:1

Jones, E. (1923) The nature of auto-suggestion. Int. J. Psycho-anal., 4:293

Heimann, P. (1950) On counter-transference. Int. J. Psycho-anal., 31:81

Money-Kyrle, R. (1956) Normal counter-transference and some of its deviations. Int. J.

Psycho-anal., 37:360

Rappaport, E. (1959) The first dream in an erotized transference. Int. J. Psycho-anal.,

40:240

Monchy, R. (1952) Oral components of the castration complex. Int. J. Psycho-anal.,

33:450

Bouvet, M. (1956). Incidences thrapeutiques de la prise de conscience de

l'envie de pnis dans la nvrose obsessionnelle fminine
uvres psychanalytiques. Paris, Payot, 1967. pp. 49-75

Jekels, L. Et al (1949) Transference and love. Psychoanal. Q., 18:325

Fenichel, O. (1949) The symbolic equation: girl = phallus. Psychoanal. Q., 18:303






1952) THE ORIGINS OF TRANSFERENCE. INT. J. PSYCHO-ANAL., 33:433 (IJP)

THE ORIGINS OF TRANSFERENCE1

MELANIE KLEIN

In his Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria Freud defines the transference

situation in the following way:
What are transferences? They are new editions or facsimiles of the tendencies and
phantasies which are aroused and made conscious during the progress of the analysis;
but they have this peculiarity, which is characteristic for their species, that they replace
some earlier person by the person of the physician. To put it another way: a whole
series of psychological experiences are revived, not as belonging to the past, but as
applying to the physician at the present moment.
In some form or other transference operates throughout life and influences all human
relations, but here I am only concerned with the manifestations of transference in
psycho-analysis. It is characteristic of psycho-analytic procedure that, as it begins to
open up roads into the patient's unconscious, his past (in its conscious and unconscious
aspects) is gradually being revived. Thereby his urge to transfer his early experiences,
object-relations and emotions, is reinforced and they come to focus on the psychoanalyst; this implies that the patient deals with the conflicts and anxieties which have
been reactivated, by making use of the same mechanisms and defences as in earlier
situations.
It follows that the deeper we are able to penetrate into the unconscious and the further
back we can take the analysis, the greater will be our understanding of the transference.
Therefore a brief summary of my conclusions about the earliest stages of development
is relevant to my topic.
The first form of anxiety is of a persecutory nature. The working of the death instinct
withinwhich according to Freud is directed against the organismgives rise to the
fear of annihilation, and this is the primordial cause of persecutory anxiety.
Furthermore, from the beginning of post-natal life (I am not concerned here with prenatal processes) destructive impulses against the object stir up fear of retaliation. These
persecutory feelings from inner sources are intensified by painful external experiences,
for, from the earliest days onwards, frustration and discomfort arouse in the infant the
feeling that he is being attacked by hostile forces. Therefore the sensations experienced
by the infant at birth and the difficulties of adapting himself to entirely new conditions
give rise to persecutory anxiety. The comfort and care given after birth, particularly the
first feeding experiences, are felt to come from good forces. In speaking of 'forces' I am






using a rather adult word for what the young infant dimly conceives of as objects, either
good or bad. The infant directs his feelings of gratification and love towards the 'good'
breast, and his destructive impulses and feelings of persecution towards what he feels to
be frustrating, i.e. the 'bad' breast. At this stage splitting processes are at their height,
and love and hatred as well as the good and bad aspects of the breast are largely kept
apart from one another. The infant's relative security is based on turning the good
object into an ideal one as a protection against the dangerous and persecuting object.
These processesthat is to say splitting, denial, omnipotence and idealizationare
prevalent during the first three or four months of life (which I termed the 'paranoidschizoid position' (1946). In these ways at a very early stage persecutory anxiety and its
corollary, idealization, fundamentally influence object relations.
The primal processes of projection and introjection, being inextricably linked with the
infant's emotions and anxieties, initiate object-relations; by projecting, i.e. deflecting
libido and aggression on to the mother's breast, the basis for object-relations is
established; by introjecting the object, first of all the breast, relations to internal objects
come into being. My use of the term 'object-relations' is based on my contention that
the infant has from the beginning of

1Read at the 17th International Psycho-Analytical Congress, Amsterdam, August, 1951.

3It is an essential feature of this earliest of all object-relations that it is the prototype of
a relation between two people into which no other object enters. This is of vital
importance for later object-relations, though in that exclusive form it possibly does not
last longer than a very few months, for the phantasies relating to the father and his
penisphantasies which initiate the early stages of the Oedipus complexintroduce
the relation to more than one object. In the analysis of adults and children the patient
sometimes comes to experience feelings of blissful happiness through the revival of this
early exclusive relation with the mother and her breast. Such experiences often follow
the analysis of jealousy and rivalry situations in which a third object, ultimately the
father, is involved.
- 433 post-natal life a relation to the mother (although focusing primarily on her breast) which
is imbued with the fundamental elements of an object-relation, i.e. love, hatred,
phantasies, anxieties, and defences.3
In my viewas I have explained in detail on other occasionsthe introjection of the
breast is the beginning of superego formation which extends over years. We have
grounds for assuming that from the first feeding experience onwards the infant
introjects the breast in its various aspects. The core of the superego is thus the mother's
breast, both good and bad. Owing to the simultaneous operation of introjection and
projection, relations to external and internal objects interact. The father too, who soon






plays a role in the child's life, early on becomes part of the infant's internal world. It is
characteristic of the infant's emotional life that there are rapid fluctuations between love
and hate; between external and internal situations; between perception of reality and the
phantasies relating to it; and, accordingly, an interplay between persecutory anxiety and
idealizationboth referring to internal and external objects; the idealized object being a
corollary of the persecutory, extremely bad one.
The ego's growing capacity for integration and synthesis leads more and more, even
during these first few months, to states in which love and hatred, and correspondingly
the good and bad aspects of objects, are being synthesized; and this gives rise to the
second form of anxietydepressive anxietyfor the infant's aggressive impulses and
desires towards the bad breast (mother) are now felt to be a danger to the good breast
(mother) as well. In the second quarter of the first year these emotions are reinforced,
because at this stage the infant increasingly perceives and introjects the mother as a
person. Depressive anxiety is intensified, for the infant feels he has destroyed or is
destroying a whole object by his greed and uncontrollable aggression. Moreover, owing
to the growing synthesis of his emotions, he now feels that these destructive impulses
are directed against a loved person. Similar processes operate in relation to the father
and other members of the family. These anxieties and corresponding defences
constitute the 'depressive position', which comes to a head about the middle of the first
year and whose essence is the anxiety and guilt relating to the destruction and loss of
the loved internal and external objects.
It is at this stage, and bound up with the depressive position, that the Oedipus complex
sets in. Anxiety and guilt add a powerful impetus towards the beginning of the Oedipus
complex. For anxiety and guilt increase the need to externalize (project) bad figures
and to internalize (introject) good ones; to attach desires, love, feelings of guilt, and
reparative tendencies to some objects, and hate and anxiety to others; to find
representatives for internal figures in the external world. It is, however, not only the
search for new objects which dominates the infant's needs, but also the drive towards
new aims: away from the breast towards the penis, i.e. from oral desires towards genital
ones. Many factors contribute to these developments: the forward drive of the libido,
the growing integration of the ego, physical and mental skills and progressive
adaptation to the external world. These trends are bound up with the process of symbol
formation, which enables the infant to transfer not only interest, but also emotions and
phantasies, anxiety and guilt, from one object to another.
The processes I have described are linked with another fundamental phenomenon
governing mental life. I believe that the pressure exerted by the earliest anxiety
situations is one of the factors which bring about the repetition compulsion. I shall
return to this hypothesis at a later point.
Some of my conclusions about the earliest stages of infancy are a continuation of
Freud's discoveries; on certain points, however, divergencies have arisen, one of which






is very relevant to my present topic. I am referring to my contention that objectrelations are operative from the beginning of post-natal life.
For many years I have held the view that auto-erotism and narcissism are in the young
infant contemporaneous with the first relation to objectsexternal and internalized. I
shall

4'Psycho-Analysis', 1922. Contained in Collected Papers, 5, p. 119.

- 434 briefly restate my hypothesis: auto-erotism and narcissism include the love for and
relation with the internalized good object which in phantasy forms part of the loved
body and self. It is to this internalized object that in auto-erotic gratification and
narcissistic states a withdrawal takes place. Concurrently, from birth onwards, a
relation to objects, primarily the mother (her breast) is present. This hypothesis
contradicts Freud's concept of auto-erotic and narcissistic stages which preclude an
object-relation. However, the difference between Freud's view and my own is less wide
than appears at first sight, since Freud's statements on this issue are not unequivocal. In
various contexts he explicitly and implicitly expressed opinions which suggested a
relation to an object, the mother's breast, preceding auto-erotism and narcissism. One
reference must suffice; in the first of two Encyclopaedia articles, 4 Freud said;
In the first instance the oral component instinct finds satisfaction by attaching itself to
the sating of the desire for nourishment; and its object is the mother's breast. It then
detaches itself, becomes independent and at the same time auto-erotic, that is, it finds an
object in the child's own body.
Freud's use of the term object is here somewhat different from my use of this term, for
he is referring to the object of an instinctual aim, while I mean, in addition to this, an
object-relation involving the infant's emotions, phantasies, anxieties, and defences.
Nevertheless, in the sentence referred to, Freud clearly speaks of a libidinal attachment
to an object, the mother's breast, which precedes auto-erotism and narcissism.
In this context I wish to remind you also of Freud's findings about early identifications.
In The Ego and the Id, 5 speaking of abandoned object cathexes, he said; ' the effects
of the first identification in earliest childhood will be profound and lasting. This leads
us back to the origin of the ego-ideal; ' Freud then defines the first and most
important identifications which lie hidden behind the ego-ideal as the identification with
the father, or with the parents, and places them, as he expresses it, in the 'pre-history of
every person'. These formulations come close to what I described as the first introjected
objects, for by definition identifications are the result of introjection. From the
statement I have just discussed and the passage quoted from the Encyclopaedia article it
can be deduced that Freud, although he did not pursue this line of thought further, did
assume that in earliest infancy both an object and introjective processes play a part.






That is to say, as regards auto-erotism and narcissism we meet with an inconsistency in
Freud's views. Such inconsistencies which exist on a number of points of theory clearly
show, I think, that on these particular issues Freud had not yet arrived at a final
decision. In respect of the theory of anxiety he stated this explicitly in Inhibitions,
Symptoms and Anxiety.6 His realization that much about the early stages of
development was still unknown or obscure to him is also exemplified by his speaking of
the first years of the girl's life as ' lost in a past so dim and shadowy '7
I do not know Anna Freud's view about this aspect of Freud's work. But, as regards the
question of auto-erotism and narcissism, she seems only to have taken into account
Freud's conclusion that an auto-erotic and a narcissistic stage precede object-relations,
and not to have allowed for the other possibilities implied in some of Freud's statements
such as the ones I referred to above. This is one of the reasons why the divergence
between Anna Freud's conception and my conception of early infancy is far greater than
that between Freud's views, taken as a whole, and my views. I am stating this because I
believe it is essential to clarify the extent and nature of the differences between the two
schools of psycho-analytic thought represented by Anna Freud and myself. Such
clarification is required in the interests of psycho-analytic training and also because it
could help to open up fruitful discussions between psycho-analysts and thereby
contribute to a greater general understanding of the fundamental problems of early
infancy.
The hypothesis that a stage extending over several months precedes object-relations
implies thatexcept for the libido attached to the infant's own bodyimpulses,
phantasies, anxieties, and defences either are not present in him, or are not related to an
object, that is to say they would operate in vacuo. The analysis

5P. 39. On the same page Freud suggestsstill referring to these first identifications
that they are a direct and immediate identification which takes place earlier than any
object cathexis. This suggestion seems to imply that introjection even precedes objectrelations.
61926. Chapter 8, p. 96.
71931. 'Female Sexuality'; contained in Collected Papers, 5, p. 254.
- 435 of very young children has taught me that there is no instinctual urge, no anxiety
situation, no mental process which does not involve objects, external or internal; in
other words, object-relations are at the centre of emotional life. Furthermore, love and
hatred, phantasies, anxieties, and defences are also operative from the beginning and are
ab initio indivisibly linked with object-relations. This insight showed me many
phenomena in a new light.






I shall now draw the conclusion on which the present paper rests: I hold that
transference originates in the same processes which in the earliest stages determine
object-relations. Therefore we have to go back again and again in analysis to the
fluctuations between objects, loved and hated, external and internal, which dominate
early infancy. We can fully appreciate the interconnection between positive and
negative transferences only if we explore the early interplay between love and hate, and
the vicious circle of aggression, anxieties, feelings of guilt and increased aggression, as
well as the various aspects of objects towards whom these conflicting emotions and
anxieties are directed. On the other hand, through exploring these early processes I
became convinced that the analysis of the negative transference, which had received
relatively little attention8 in psycho-analytic technique, is a precondition for analysing
the deeper layers of the mind. The analysis of the negative as well as of the positive
transference and of their interconnection is, as I have held for many years, an
indispensable principle for the treatment of all types of patients, children and adults
alike. I have substantiated this view in most of my writings from 1927 onwards.
This approach, which in the past made possible the psycho-analysis of very young
children, has in recent years proved extremely fruitful for the analysis of schizophrenic
patients. Until about 1920 it was assumed that schizophrenic patients were incapable of
forming a transference and therefore could not be psycho-analysed. Since then the
psycho-analysis of schizophrenics has been attempted by various techniques. The most
radical change of view in this respect, however, has occurred more recently and is
closely connected with the greater knowledge of the mechanisms, anxieties, and
defences operative in earliest infancy. Since some of these defences, evolved in primal
object-relations against both love and hatred, have been discovered, the fact that
schizophrenic patients are capable of developing both a positive and a negative
transference has been fully understood; this finding is confirmed if we consistently
apply in the treatment of schizophrenic patients9 the principle that it is as necessary to
analyse the negative as the positive transferencethat in fact the one cannot be
analysed without the other.
Retrospectively it can be seen that these considerable advances in technique are
supported in psycho-analytic theory by Freud's discovery of the Life and Death
instincts, which has fundamentally added to the understanding of the origin of
ambivalence. Because the Life and Death instincts, and therefore love and hatred, are at
bottom in the closest interaction, negative and positive transference are basically
interlinked.
The understanding of earliest object-relations and the processes they imply has
essentially influenced technique from various angles. It has long been known that the
psycho-analyst in the transference situation may stand for mother, father, or other
people, that he is also at times playing in the patient's mind the part of the superego, at
other times that of the id or the ego. Our present knowledge enables us to penetrate to






the specific details of the various roles allotted by the patient to the analyst. There are
in fact very few people in the young infant's life, but he feels them to be a multitude of
objects because they appear to him in different aspects. Accordingly, the analyst may at
a given moment represent a part of the self, of the superego or any one of a wide range
of internalized figures. Similarly it does not carry us far enough if we realize that the
analyst stands for the actual father or mother, unless we understand which aspect of the
parents has been revived. The picture of the parents in the patient's mind has in varying
degrees undergone distortion through the infantile processes of projection and
idealization, and has often retained much of its phantastic nature. Altogether, in the
young infant's mind every external experience is interwoven with his phantasies and on
the other

8This was largely due to the undervaluation of the importance of aggression.

9This technique is illustrated by H. Segal's paper, 'Some Aspects of the Analysis of a
Schizophrenic' (Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 31, 1950), and H. Rosenfeld's papers, 'Notes on the
Psycho-Analysis of the Super-ego Conflict of an Acute Schizophrenic Patient' (Int. J.
Psycho-Anal., 33, 1952) and 'Transference Phenomena and Transference Analysis in an
Acute Catatonic Schizophrenic Patient' (see this volume, 457464).
10See Psycho-Analysis of Children, particularly Chapters 8 and 11.
- 436 hand every phantasy contains elements of actual experience, and it is only by analysing
the transference situation to its depth that we are able to discover the past both in its
realistic and phantastic aspects. It is also the origin of these fluctuations in earliest
infancy which accounts for their strength in the transference, and for the swift
changessometimes even within one sessionbetween father and mother, between
omnipotently kind objects and dangerous persecutors, between internal and external
figures. Sometimes the analyst appears simultaneously to represent both parentsin
that case often in a hostile alliance against the patient, whereby the negative
transference acquires great intensity. What has then been revived or has become
manifest in the transference is the mixture in the patient's phantasy of the parents as one
figure, the 'combined parent figure' as I described it elsewhere.10 This is one of the
phantasy formations characteristic of the earliest stages of the Oedipus complex and
which, if maintained in strength, is detrimental both to object-relations and sexual
development. The phantasy of the combined parents draws its force from another
element of early emotional lifei.e. from the powerful envy associated with frustrated
oral desires. Through the analysis of such early situations we learn that in the baby's
mind when he is frustrated (or dissatisfied from inner causes) his frustration is coupled
with the feeling that another object (soon represented by the father) receives from the
mother the coveted gratification and love denied to himself at that moment. Here is one






root of the phantasy that the parents are combined in an everlasting mutual gratification
of an oral, anal, and genital nature. And this is in my view the prototype of situations of
both envy and jealousy.
There is another aspect of the analysis of transference which needs mentioning. We are
accustomed to speak of the transference situation. But do we always keep in mind the
fundamental importance of this concept? It is my experience that in unravelling the
details of the transference it is essential to think in terms of total situations transferred
from the past into the present, as well as of emotions, defences, and object-relations.
For many yearsand this is up to a point still true todaytransference was understood
in terms of direct references to the analyst in the patient's material. My conception of
transference as rooted in the earliest stages of development and in deep layers of the
unconscious is much wider and entails a technique by which from the whole material
presented the unconscious elements of the transference are deduced. For instance,
reports of patients about their everyday life, relations, and activities not only give an
insight into the functioning of the ego, but also revealif we explore their unconscious
contentthe defences against the anxieties stirred up in the transference situation. For
the patient is bound to deal with conflicts and anxieties re-experienced towards the
analyst by the same methods he used in the past. That is to say, he turns away from the
analyst as he attempted to turn away from his primal objects; he tries to split the relation
to him, keeping him either as a good or as a bad figure; he deflects some of the feelings
and attitudes experienced towards the analyst on to other people in his current life, and
this is part of 'acting out'.11
In keeping with my subject matter, I have predominantly discussed here the earliest
experiences, situations, and emotions from which transference springs. On these
foundations, however, are built the later object-relations and the emotional and
intellectual developments which necessitate the analyst's attention no less than the
earliest ones; that is to say, our field of investigation covers all that lies between the
current situation and the earliest experiences. In fact it is not possible to find access to
earliest emotions and object-relations except by examining their vicissitudes in the light
of later developments. It is only by linking again and again (and that means hard and
patient work) later experiences with earlier ones and vice versa, it is only by
consistently exploring their interplay, that present and past can come together in the
patient's mind. This is one aspect of the process of integration which, as the analysis
progresses, encompasses the whole of the patient's mental life. When anxiety and guilt
diminish and love and hate can be better synthesized, splitting processesa
fundamental defence against anxietyas well as repressions

11The patient may at times try to escape from the present into the past rather than
realize that his emotions, anxieties, and phantasies are at the time operative in full






strength and focused on the analyst. At other times, as we know, the defences are
mainly directed against re-experiencing the past in relation to the original objects.
- 437 lessen while the ego gains in strength and coherence; the cleavage between idealized
and persecutory objects diminishes; the phantastic aspects of objects lose in strength; all
of which implies that unconscious phantasy lifeless sharply divided off from the
unconscious part of the mindcan be better utilized in ego activities, with a consequent
general enrichment of the personality. I am touching here on the differences as
contrasted with the similaritiesbetween transference and the first object-relations.
These differences are a measure of the curative effect of the analytic procedure.
I suggested above that one of the factors which bring about the repetition compulsion is
the pressure exerted by the earliest anxiety situations. When persecutory and depressive
anxiety and guilt diminish, there is less urge to repeat fundamental experiences over and
over again, and therefore early patterns and modes of feelings are maintained with less
tenacity. These fundamental changes come about through the consistent analysis of the
transference; they are bound up with a deep-reaching revision of the earliest objectrelations and are reflected in the patient's current life as well as in the altered attitudes
towards the analyst.
REFERENCES
FREUD, SIGMUND 1905 'Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria' Collected
Papers 3
FREUD, SIGMUND 1922 'Psycho-Analysis' Collected Papers 5
FREUD, SIGMUND 1923 The Ego and the Id.
FREUD, SIGMUND 1926 Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety
FREUD, SIGMUND 1931 'Female Sexuality' Collected Papers 5
KLEIN, MELANIE 1932 The Psycho-Analysis of Children Hogarth Press.
KLEIN, MELANIE 1946 'Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms' Int. J. Psycho-Anal.
27 also contained in Developments in Psycho-Analysis, by Melanie Klein, Paula
Heimann, Susan Isaacs, and Joan Riviere. (London: Hogarth Press, 1952 .)
KLEIN, MELANIE 1948 Contributions to Psycho-Analysis, 192145 Hogarth Press.
ROSENFELD, HERBERT 1952 'Notes on the Psycho-Analysis of the Super-ego
Conflict of an Acute Schizophrenic Patient' Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 33
ROSENFELD, HERBERT 1952 'Transference Phenomena and Transference Analysis
in an Acute Catatonic Schizophrenic Patient' (this volume).
SEGAL, HANNA 1950 'Some Aspects of the Analysis of a Schizophrenic' Int. J.
Psycho-Anal. 31 Contained in Collected Papers, 3, p. 139.






(1951) TRANSFERENCE AND REALITY. INT. J. PSYCHO-ANAL., 32:1 (IJP)

TRANSFERENCE AND REALITY1

HERMAN NUNBERG

A patient of mine was from the beginning of treatment very critical of me; whatever I
did or said was wrong. She found fault with everything. She corrected me constantly,
trying to teach me what to do, how to behave, what to think and what to saynot only
what to say, but also how to say it. Because I could not give in to her attempts to reeducate me, she felt hurt and angry. Although she soon recognized that she expected
literally to find her father in me, she did not change her attitude. The more conscious
the attachment to her father became to her, the more she demanded that I change to the
likeness of his image within her.
What did this attitude express? Certainly, it did not reflect the phenomenon that we call
transference. It revealed merely her readiness for transference. This readiness
obviously produced two attitudes in her: first, an expectation of finding her real father
in the analyst; secondly, the wish to change the real person of the analyst into her father
as she imagined him. As this desire could not be realized, she suffered constantly from
disappointments, frustrations and anger. This situation led to conflicts with her analyst
on a quasi-real basis. Thus it is evident that she did not 'transfer' her emotions from her
father to her analyst, but rather that she attempted to transform her analyst into her
father. The particular fixation to her father created the wish to find his reincarnation in
the person of the analyst, and, since her desire to transform the latter into a person
identical with her father could not be fulfilled, the attempts to establish a working
transference were futile. Thus transference often breaks down not because of primary
aggression, which is the driving force of the so-called negative transference, but because
of disappointments and frustrated efforts at establishing an identity of present images
with past ones.
What is transference? In spite of disagreement on the part of some of my colleagues, I
still agree with Dr. de Saussure that transference is a projection. The term 'projection'
means that the patient's inner and unconscious relations with his first libidinal objects
are externalized. In the transference situation the analyst tries to unmask the projections
or externalizations whenever they appear during the treatment. What part identification
plays in transference will be seen later.
As a matter of fact, the word 'transference' is self-explanatory. It says that the patient
displaces emotions belonging to an unconscious representation of a repressed object to a
mental representation of an object of the external world. This object represented within






the ego is the analyst, on whom emotions and ideas belonging to the repressed
unconscious objects are projected. The repressed objects belong to the past, mostly to
the patient's early childhood, and are thus unreal. Trying to substitute a real object (for
example the analyst) for the unreal one, the patient is bound to run into misunderstandings, to become confused and to suffer frustrations. The split of the
personality and the resulting incongruity of the drives is obvious: the essential
repressed wish is unconscious and belongs to the past, its preconscious

(Received June 1, 1950)

1Paper read at the Midwinter Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association in
New York City, December 17, 1949.
2In the discussion of this paper Dr. Hartmann and Dr. Loewenstein disagreed with me
as to the role of the projection mechanism in the transference situation. They maintained
that in transference only the mechanism of displacement is at work. The term
'displacement', we know, means that the psychic stress or affect can be shifted from one
element to another within the psychic systems. In transference the individual confuses
the mental image of his father or mother with the real picture of the analyst and behaves
as if the analyst were his father or mother. Of course, we recognize in this mechanism a
displacement of affects; but, as the external object (the analyst) is treated like a mental
image (father or mother), there is no doubt that the mental image is projected on to the
analyst. Besides, Freud maintains that processes within the ego can be perceived (with a
few exceptions) only with the help of projections.
-1derivatives having undergone certain rationalizations are projected on external objects
and, when perceived, become conscious. If, for instance, a grown boy is excessively
attached to his mother, he is not satisfied with the kind of gratification her substitute
offers him in reality, but expects unconsciously those gratifications that he has
experienced in the past.2
If in transference, projection of internal and unconscious images on to real objects is
taking place, then the first patient's attitude can hardly be called transference. She did
not project the image of her father on to the analyst; she tried to change her analyst
according to the image of her father.
The next example is different. A patient was unable to understand me when she was
lying on the couch with her eyes open. When she closed her eyes she could understand
me; it then seemed to her as if she were hearing a ghost talking, and my voice sounded
like the voice of her dead father. This illusion had almost the intensity of a
hallucination.






The difference in respect to transference between this patient and the first one is
striking: the first patient only tried to transform her analyst into her father, she tried to
change a real person into an image of the past, she attempted to make the analyst
conform with her memories of her father, to establish an identical picture of both; the
second patient succeeded in getting an identical picture of her father through the
medium of a real person, the analyst, to such an extent that the analyst's voice became
her father's voice; she almost had a hallucination of her father. In the first case the
effort to effect a transference failed, in the second it was successful. The second
patient's feelings for the analyst in the psycho-analytic situation revived the repressed
image of her father which she projected on the analyst, so that the two became almost
identical. In fact, at times father and analyst became confused in her mind. The first
patient tried unsuccessfully to transform the person of the present into the person of the
past, whereas the second patient experienced the person of the past in the person of the
present. Present objects and past images became identical in her mind.
The tendency to establish 'identical pictures' is perhaps better illustrated by a fragment
of the second patient's dream:
water was pouring out through a hole in her refrigerator. She held her hand under the
hole in order to stop the flow but the hole sucked her hand in so that it hurt.
The day-residue consisted of the fact that the refrigerator was out of order and that the
patient feared an overflow of water in her kitchen. The evening preceding this dream
she had a visitor with whom she talked about sex education. The visitor told her that
she forbade her little daughter to put her hand into her nose or mouth because a disease
might enter her body. The patient was shocked and thought that this little girl later in
life would think that a disease would enter her body when she had sexual intercourse.
She herself suffered from severe phobias of touching, among them a fear of infection
through the vagina during her pregnancy. Long before her marriage she was afraid of
the pain during intercourse and at childbirth. She asserted that the pain in the dream
was very real. In the same session she told me that on her way to my office she had
thought she would even agree to my cutting off her arm if only I could help her to get
well. At this point two childhood recollections came to her mind; first, that when she
used to stuff her finger into her nose she felt pain, and secondly, that a woman once told
her of another little girl who put her hand in a toilet bowl and had her arm caught in the
pipe of the bowl because of the strong suction when the toilet upstairs was flushed. The
patient stressed that the pain in her arm felt in the dream persisted when she was awake.
What happened here? The real and conscious fear of her kitchen being flooded by the
leaking refrigerator, and the preconscious ideas and fears of her masturbatory activities
stimulated by the conversation with her visitor revived a picture of her childhood which
she
-2-






dreaded because it reminded her of masturbation and the fears connected with it. In
other words, a real expectation produced a regression and revived a picture from
childhood which, in the dream, acquired qualities of reality. Freud calls this
phenomenon the 'identity of perceptions' (Wahrnehmungsidentitt). This means that an
actual perception of an idea revives old, unconscious, repressed ideas or emotions to
such an extent that they are perceived as actual images although their meaning is not
recognized by the conscious psychic apparatus; thus present and old ideas and emotions
become identical for a while. This tendency to revive old ideas and perceptions and to
make the present coincide with the past, forms the basis of the phenomenon which is
called 'acting out'.
Another example may perhaps be even more instructive. About eight months after the
conclusion of his analysis, a patient asked me to see him immediately because of sudden
panic and insomnia. I do not wish to go into the details of this complicated symptom. I
wish only to say that the cause of this sudden panic and insomnia was his newborn son.
When his wife came home with the infant from the hospital, she put it, as arranged in
advance, in the room adjoining the parents' bedroom. For the night she wanted to close
the door between the two rooms, but he wanted it open in order to hear every sound in
the child's room. Since she, nevertheless, closed the door, he became frantic,
overwhelmed by panic, and unable to sleep, trying to listen to all the sounds that seemed
to him to emanate from the baby's room. This condition, which had lasted for several
days by the time he came to see me, gave me the opportunity to remind him that he had
had quite a number of fears in different periods of his life. I drew his attention to one
particular fear of his childhood: frequently, when his parents were not home at night, he
was seized by the idea that his rabbits out in the yard were being killed, and he insisted
that his nurse go and find out whether they were still alive. When I mentioned this, he
remembered another fear of his early childhood whose importance he could only now
fully comprehend. This fear concerned the door of his room which faced his mother's
room across the hall-way. When his door stood open he could see whether his mother
was at home; then he felt secure and could go to sleep. But when the door was closed,
he felt alone, deserted by his mother, and therefore could not sleep and became panicky.
Throughout his childhood he feared that his mother would leave him. About the age of
five, he tried repeatedly to run away from home, pretending to leave his mother, thus
reversing his fear of being deserted by her.
The panic caused by the closing of his child's door thus betrayed his infantile fear of
being left alone by his mother. The urgent desire to keep the door open reflected the
ritual of his childhood to keep his own door open. The difference between the actual
and the infantile situation lies only in the fact that the subject is changed: instead of
himself as a child being anxious about his mother's love, he was now as a mature man
anxious about his son's safety and well-being. The situation was thus reversed; the
insomnia and anxiety were, however, unchanged. It is obvious that the patient projected
one part of his ego on to his son and that he identified another part with his mother. His






son incarnated himself, and he incarnated his mother. Both these representations were,
of course, unconscious. It is probable that his infantile wish to see what was going on in
his mother's room was overdetermined; the actual panic might also reflect the one felt
while overhearing the noises of the primal scene. This, however, would not change the
meaning of our patient's reaction to his son; on the contrary, it would only broaden our
interpretation.
For the purpose of our discussion the bare fact that our patient attempted to re-establish
in the present a situation as it existed in childhood is more significant than is the
meaning of the panic. What he wanted was simple enough: he wished to have the door
open. The fulfilment of this wish would have repeated in actuality the infantile situation
of the open door, and would have spared him anxiety.
This example showsas do many casesthat the tendency to 'transfer' infantile
experiences into reality and to act them out can be observed not only in the transference
situation but also independently of it. An urge to establish identity of perceptions
through repetition of past experiences is thus, in conformity with Freud's ideas,
undeniable.
Now we can see that the establishment of identical perceptions is an act of projection as
well as of identification. Identification, as we know, has several meanings. One of
them expresses a community of feelings and thoughts in a group formation. The
analysis is a group formation of two persons. The common goal
-3of analyst and patient is helping, i.e. curing the patient. This alone would suffice to
establish an identification. Identification, however, is also a regressive substitute for
love, if the love object in the external world becomes a part of the ego. In analysis the
common goal of analyst and patient leads first to identification of the patient with the
analyst and further to the revival of the deeper identifications with the parents. Hardly
has this identification taken place when the patient tries to lodge with the analyst the
reactivated residues of the infantile relationship with the parents. This can be
accomplished only by means of projection. It seems thus as if projection helped to find
the lost object in the outside world, as if the analyst were a screen on which the patient
projected his unconscious pictures. In fact, when we reach certain depths in analysis, it
is difficult to discern between identification and projection. It seems as if the
boundaries of the ego were removed, as Federn would say, in which state the subject
feels as if he were a part of the external world and the external world a part of himself.
This corresponds to states of transitivism which Freud, in Totem and Taboo, ascribed to
the animistic phase of human development. Later he referred to similar states as
'oceanic feelings'. States of this kind can, not too infrequently, be observed in those
psycho-analytical sessions during which the patient is very deeply immersed in his
unconscious id.






Although transference makes use of both mechanisms, identification and projection, one
fact remains unchanged: the tendency to establish identity of old and new perceptions.
The tendency to bring about 'identity of perceptions' seems to satisfy the repetition
compulsion which, as is well known, is the driving force of many a psychic
phenomenon. Compelling the individual to preserve the past, it is a conservative
principle. And yet, as soon as it is coupled with the phenomenon of transference, it
becomes a progressive element, in the sense, of course, of psychic topography. This
statement may require some amplification. An actual event reactivates an old repressed
one which, on its part, tries to replace the new experience; this can best be observed in
dreams. The attempt to re-live repressed experiences in actual ones is only in part
successful, as the censorship of the dream or the resistance of the ego tries to disguise
them. According to our theoretical conception of the psychic apparatus, this fact can be
expressed also in the following way: certain perceptions and sensations produced by
stimuli of daily life undergo historical and topical regressions to corresponding old,
repressed, unconscious experiences. As soon as the cathexis of the actual experience
(i.e. the charge of psychic energy) reaches the psychic representations of the repressed
and fixated experiences in the unconscious id, it strengthens and re-activates them.
These reactivated unconscious representations now manifest a tendency to 'progression',
i.e. a tendency to reach the perceptual and motor end of the psychic apparatus. Here
they give the perceptions of actual events and the sensations produced by them an
unconscious tinge; the ego behaves as if it were the id. Through this process the
analyst, in the transference situation, becomes the representative of the objects of the
unconscious strivings.
The readiness for transference exists, as indicated before, independently of the psychoanalytic situation. The mere fact that a patient decides to seek help from an analyst (or
other therapist) furthers this phenomenon. Furthermore, the analyst's request for free
associations stimulates reproduction of old memories, i.e. of mental repetition of
repressed experiences. In addition, the repetition of old images stirs up emotions which
once accompanied them. These old and yet new, actual, emotions try to attach
themselves to the only real object available, the psycho-analyst, and to find an outlet in
wishes, fantasies and actions directed towards him. It seems as if a new experience
could not be assimilatedin the sense of the synthetic function of the egounless it
found its way to the old patterns. Therefore it is not surprising that transference occurs
also in other than psycho-analytic therapies. The psycho-analyst and the non-psychoanalyst differ in their treatment and understanding of this phenomenon, in that the
former treats the transference symptoms as illusions while the latter takes them at their
face value, i.e. as realities.
The transference proceeds according to the need to assimilate actual experiences in such
a way that their perception either conforms to or becomes identical with repressed
unconscious ideas. What has been once experiencedparticularly in childhoodseems






to form an indelible imprint in the unconscious from which patterns develop. These
patterns may be dormant for a long time and become active only under certain
circumstances. The latency
-4of these patterns, or their state of unconsciousness, is responsible for the fact that the
meaning of the present experiences following these patterns remains unconscious.
However, it must be added that complete gratification of the need for 'identity of
perceptions' is not achieved as a rule, except in dreams, delusions and hallucinations. In
the transference situation the unconscious pattern overshadows the conscious perception
of an actual event and produces an illusion, while in dreams or psychoses the same
pattern or image forms hallucinations. Hence illusions can be reality-tested,
hallucinations can not, or can only in part.
It might appear as if the concept of transference and the concept of repetition
compulsion had been confused here, but this is certainly not the case. In so far as a
repetition of previous states takes place in the transference situation, transference is a
manifestation of the repetition compulsion. In so far, however, as in transference the
wishes and drives are directed towards the objects of the external world, though through
the repetition of old experiences, transference is independent of the repetition
compulsion. Repetition compulsion points to the past, transference to actuality (reality)
and thus, in a sense, to the future. Repetition compulsion tries to fixate, to 'freeze', the
old psychic reality, hence it becomes a regressive force; transference attempts to reanimate these 'frozen' psychic formations, to discharge their energy and to satisfy them
in a new and present reality, and thus becomes a progressive force.
I would say that transference is like Janus, two-faced, with one face turned to the past,
the other to the present. Through transference the patient lives the present in the past
and the past in the present. In his speech he betrays a lack of feeling for the sequence of
events, which is conceived as time. This lack, however, is not characteristic only of the
transference to the analyst. Almost all neurotics are confused in relation to the element
of time, whether they are in treatment or not. Many patients in analysis can identify
recent events only after elucidation of childhood experiences; others condense
experiences from different periods of their life into one event and can keep them apart
only after thorough analysis, etc. The fact that the patient loses the sense of time in the
transference situation is not surprising, as it corresponds to the phenomenon that
repressed unconscious events, events of the past, are experienced in the present as if no
time had elapsed. Indeed, we know from Freud that the unconscious is timeless.
That past and present flow together may seem an obstacle to recognizing the past in the
present. But closer examination shows that through re-animation of the representations
of repressed objects in the transference situation, the ego gains direct access to its
childhood experiences; not the entire ego, of course, but only that part which has not
been altered by the repression and has remained intact. This intact ego now has an






opportunity to confront its feelings for and expectations from the analyst with the
situation in the past, in childhood, and to compare them with one another as if the whole
life were spread in front of the inner eye on a single plane. As soon as the patient
becomes conscious of his transference, he gains the ability to assess his actual feelings
in relation to the infantile situation. This helps him to distinguish between the images
returning from the past and the perceptions of external, actual objects, and thus to test
reality better than before. Some patients accept reality then as it is, others do not. The
first patient discussed here did not accept reality; she could not give up the peculiar
attachment to her father. She would rather have changed the world than change herself
by accepting the analyst as an object of the outside world. The second patient was able
to see that the analyst represented a new edition of her father, an edition which she
herself created. The third patient became aware that his son represented himself as a
child. It is evident that divesting the actual experiences in the transference of the
influence of repressed images enhances reality testing. If, as often happens, in the
course of free associations the patient produces images which have the intensity of real
perceptions, or are hallucinations, the analyst may almost always be sure that he is
dealing with actual memories. When the patient accepts such 'hallucinations' as
memories, he loses the incentive to project the memories (unconscious images) into the
external world and then to perceive them as realities.
As indicated before, patients try to 'act out' their repressed unconscious in the
transference, by repeating certain patterns of their life. They bend reality, so to speak,
in the transference situation. Sometimes the repetitions are helpful for the analysis,
sometimes they
-5make the analysis difficult. Then they form certain types of resistances. Freud said
once that in the resistances the patient reveals his character. A very simple example
may illustrate this fact. A patient showed from the very beginning an astonishing
willingness for and understanding of the analysis. His associations flowed easily, he
produced important recollections, and so on. He continued in this way for a fairly long
period, yet the analysis did not make any progress, until we found that his mother used
to ask him to tell her everything he thought and did during the day. Our patient
confided all his thoughts to her until late in adolescence. It gave him great pleasure
when she was talking with him at night while sitting on his bed, and he could see,
through her thin nightgown, the contours of her body, particularly of her breasts. He
pretended to tell her everything, but the secret of his sexual fantasies about her he kept
to himself. Displaying similar behaviour in his analysis, he pretended to tell the truth;
in fact, tried to fool his analyst as he had his mother. In his behaviour with other people
he was sincere yet reserved and distrustful so that he never had really close friends. He
was a lonesome man.






As soon as he became conscious of the fact that he was 'transferring' his relationship to
his mother into his relationship with his analyst, he understood that by doing so he
defeated his own purpose, the success of his treatment. From then on he was sincere
with his analyst, except at times when other resistances with different backgrounds
arose. In other words, through the act of consciousness, i.e. through the perception of
unconscious strivings of the id, the ego acquired the faculty to control the repetition of
these strivings and to adjust itself to realitywhich in this case was represented by the
patient's will to recovery.
Not always, as in this example, is a character-trait formed by a compromise between
contrasting strivings. There are other formations of character-traits. In this context,
however, it is relevant to point out that contrasting strivings frequently remain separate,
and alternately find expression. This alternation of feelings permeates also the patient's
attitude to his analyst. At times, he is full of love for him, submissive, admires him, at
other times he is aggressive, stubborn, defiant, etc. These alternating attitudes, this
struggle between masochism and sadism, submission and rebellion, dependence and
independence seem to repeat previous states representing a developmental pattern. One
needs only to observe the development of children, from infancy to maturity, in order to
gain the impression of the constant struggle between the retarding tendencies of the
repetition compulsion, crystallized in fixations, dependency on the one hand, and the
hunger, avidity for new experiences and impressions for independence, on the other
hand, a struggle which finally leads to adaptation to and mastering of reality and
instinctual drives. In puberty the struggle between the strivings of the id and the needs
of the ego becomes very intense and finally leads to the formation of a normal
personality. However, if a disturbance has occurred in the course of this prolonged and
complicated development, and the patient is in analysis, the same struggle continues in
relation to the analyst in the transference situation, where the course of the development
is accelerated and usually brought to an end. In other words, when the patient
recognizes the attempts to re-live the past in the present, he usually gives them up or
modifies them. In this process the transference, which creates an artificial reality, is
unmasked, and this amounts, in a sense, to a re-education. Indeed, from its very
beginnings analysis was considered a kind of re-education.
Through transference the patient is re-educated not only in respect to the instincts and
surroundings but also in respect to the superego. In order to understand this, we must
again turn to the starting point of the analysis. Then the question arises as to why the
mere decision to turn for help to an analyst (therapist or priest) creates, in advance,
transference. The answer is very simple: in the unconscious id one asks only father or
mother for help. The form of the transference is, therefore, predetermined by the
patient's relations to his father and mother. The relationship between patient and analyst
becomes very similar to that in hypnosis. In obedience to the hypnotist's suggestions
the hypnotized person can even have hallucinations, positive as well as negative ones.
The influence of the hypnotist is so overwhelming that he may force the hypnotized






person to give up temporarily the reality-testing faculty. In the heat of transference the
analyst has powers similar to those of the hypnotist, but uses them for opposite
purposes: namely, to teach the patient reality testing. Originally, the hypnotist no more
than the analyst possesses such power; it is
-6only the patient who has invested him with it. And how did the patient obtain this
power? From his fatherthrough identification with himwould be the answer. This
identification led to the differentiation of the superego within the ego. Freud says that
the superego is the heir to the dipus complex. According to him, the hypnotist is
identified with the ego-ideal of the hypnotized person. As later on the term 'ego-ideal'
was replaced by the term 'superego', we may say as well that the hypnotist is identified
with the superego of the hypnotized. Similarly does the patient in analysis make his
analyst identical with his father through the medium of his superego. But since the
analyst is perceived as an object of the external world, now equipped with the father's
attributes, the patient must have also projected on to him parts of his own superego.
This could explain how the analyst obtains the enormous power over the patient.
Through analysis of the transference the analyst, however, tries to divest himself of the
power granted him by the patient.
There is much more to be said about the parallelism between the state of hypnosis and
the psycho-analytical situation. I shall, however, limit myself to the discussion of a few
points only.
The following is based on Freud's ideas about hypnosis. He maintains that hypnosis is a
group formation of two persons. This group, like any other group, is held together by
libidinal ties. In love, these ties are composed of directly sexual instincts and of sexual
instincts inhibited in their aims, i.e. desexualized. In hypnosis these ties are only of an
aim-inhibited nature. Hypnosis, therefore, corresponds to love with the exclusion of
directly sexual instincts. The same humility, the same compliance, the same absence of
criticism, the same overestimation in regard to the hypnotist can be observed as in the
state of being in love in regard to the loved person. If directly sexual instincts get the
upper hand, the group formation is destroyed. The same is true of the psycho-analytic
situation as it is likewise a group formation of two. In hypnosis the identification with
the hypnotist is a regressive substitute for libidinal ties in the form of desexualized, aiminhibited sexual attachments to the subject's parents. These ties form, according to
Ferenczi, the basis for the transference-readiness or suggestibility. The hypnotist, Freud
says, stimulates this readiness by claiming to be in possession of mysterious powers by
which he can put the subject to sleep. In fact, as Freud stresses, there is something
uncanny about hypnosis and hypnotist. We know from him that the uncanny represents
something old and familiar which has been repressed but is on the verge of returning
from the unconscious. Upon the hypnotist's order to sleep, the subject withdraws his
interest from the outside world and falls asleep. His sleep is, however, a partial one, a






dream-like sleep, because the subject, though detached from the external world,
nevertheless concentrates his libidinal cathexes on the hypnotist. In this way the
hypnotist establishes the rapport with the hypnotized person. In the psycho-analytic
situation the patient is removed from contact with the external world but remains in
contact with his analystconditions similar to those in hypnosis.
By putting the subject to sleep, Freud says, 'the hypnotist awakens in the subject a
portion of his archaic inheritance which also made him compliant towards his parents
and which had experienced an individual re-animation in his relation to his father; what
is thus awakened is the idea of a paramount and dangerous personality, towards whom
only a passive-masochistic attitude is possible, to whom one's will has to be
surrenderedwhile to be alone with him, "to look him in the face", appears a hazardous
enterprise. It is only in some such way as this', Freud adds, 'that we can picture the
relation of the individual member of the primal horde to the primal father '.
Hypnosis is thus a precipitate of archaic libidinal ties of mankind in the unconscious id
of the present-day individual. Suggestion is a part of hypnosis and helps to establish the
rapport (transference) between hypnotist and hypnotized. This archaic relationship
seems to be repeated in the psycho-analytic situation. The analyst promises the patient
help as if he were in possession of magic powersand the latter overestimates and
believes him. He is taboo to the patient as the primal father is to the primitive
individual. The analyst is free and has his own will, while the patient has to submit to
the psycho-analytic rules laid down by the analyst. The analyst sits upright, while the
patient lies passively on a couch. The analyst is silent most of the time, while the
patient tells him everything, gives him his unconscious material, as if performing a
sacrificial act. The analyst is omnipotent, he is fearless and can look at the patient,
while the patient is afraid of him and is not permitted to see him, like the
-7primitive man who dare not look in the face of the primal father.
As the hypnotist represents the inner and historical reality of the hypnotized, so does the
analyst represent the psychological reality of the patient. This relationship between
hypnotist and hypnotized leads the latter to replace the external reality by the historical
and psychic reality. The ego of the hypnotized person thus makes a regression to a
primitive stage of development where indeed the psychic reality replaces the external
reality and where the primary process replaces the secondary process.
A similar change occurs in the transference-situation: while the patient is on the couch,
his ego becomes temporarily weakened as does the hypnotized person's ego. As soon as
the patient complies with the analyst's demand to give up selective, logical thinking and
to abandon himself to free associations, the secondary process is supplanted by the
primary one; an important function of the ego, reality-testing, is temporarily suspended.






This, however, is valid only for the analytic session itself in which the patient is
detached from external reality as is the hypnotized patient in hypnosis. In order to
avoid any misunderstanding, it ought to be stressed that in the course of the analysis the
patient's ego is strengthened, as the analyst endeavours to make the patient face the
external reality and to free him of the dependence upon himself, in so far as he, the
analyst, represents the patient's inner reality.
One can imagine what mastery over his narcissism the analyst must have gained not to
be intoxicated by the powers granted him by the patient.
The fact that the patient's attitude towards reality is to a certain degree disturbed in
neurosisand in transferenceis caused, among other factors, by an excessively strict
and critical superego. Through the projection of his superego on the analyst, the patient
frees himself in a sense from his superego which is now represented by the analyst. The
analyst's superego is supposed to be neutral, usually milder than the patient's own
restrictive superego. As the patient identifies at the same time with the analyst, he
exchanges, as it were, his own superegothe father's moral standardsfor the
analyst's. The result of this exchange is that the patient learns not only to cope with the
internal reality as represented by instincts and conscience, but also to accept the external
world according to its full 'reality-value'; one is almost tempted to say 'at its face value'.
The fact that 'reality changes' are accomplished also under the influence of the superego,
can be understood when we take the following considerations into account. In his
Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego Freud ascribed the reality-testing faculty
to the ego-ideal. In The Ego and the Id he retracted this statement and ascribed the
reality-testing faculty to the ego. In hypnosis this faculty is disturbed by the
intervention of the hypnotist who is a representative of the patient's superego (or egoideal). It is true that the hypnotized person seems in some way to perceive objects of
the external world even in case of negative hallucinations, but this does not alter the fact
that the hypnotist can at will suppress the reality-testing faculty of the subject's ego. I
once made the statement, and this last fact supports it, that conscious perceptions of the
ego must be sanctioned by the superego in order to acquire qualities of full, uncontested
reality. This assumption could be helpful in understanding why, in addition to the
undoing of repressions, changes in the patient's superego also enhance the reality-testing
faculty of the ego.3
In conclusion: it seems to me that the tendency to establish identity of perceptions is
illustrated in an impressive way by the phenomena of hypnosis and transference. Even
the projection of the superego on the analyst proves this thesis. Through this projection
the 'father-image' is externalized and then perceived as a quasi-reality; in a sense, the
father exists now in the external world (though disguised in the shape of the analyst)
where he originally existed.
As long as the father is not recognized in the analyst, the identity of perceptions is
latent. Through the analysis of the transference it becomes manifest. Then it






diminishes in the same proportion as the repressed becomes conscious. However, it
happens that people with successful, solid repressions are well adapted to reality. Their
perceptions of actual events are not coloured by repressed experiences,

3I would like to suggest the following: if hypnosis can really be considered an archaic
heritage of mankind and suggestion (or transference) a part of it, then we are justified in
assuming that the tendency to establish identical perceptionsi.e. to revive old
experiencescan also be inherited. In this case we should have to agree with Freud's
hypothesis that not only disposition but also contents can be inherited.
-8although they may appear emotionally inhibited. On the other hand, this tendency
seems to gain control of the perceptive end of the psychic apparatus in dreams,
hallucinations and delusions.
Further discussion of this topic would lead to new problems which exceed the scope of
this paper.
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FREUD, S. An Outline of Psychoanalysis Authorized translation by James Strachey.
Int. Psycho-Anal. Library, No. 35
NUNBERG, H. (1)'The Synthetic Function of the Ego' Practice and Theory of
Psychoanalysis Nervous and Mental Disease Monographs, alsoInt. J. Psycho-Anal. 13
1931
NUNBERG, H. (2)'Problems of Therapy' Practice and Theory of Psychoanalysis
Nervous and Mental Disease Monographs, alsoInt. Z. Psychoanalyse 16 1928
NUNBERG, H. (3)'Theory of the Therapeutic Results of Psycho-analysis' Practice and
Theory of Psychoanalysis Nervous and Mental Disease Monographs, alsoInt. J. PsychoAnal. 18 1937
NUNBERG, H. (4)Allgemeine Neurosenlehre auf psychoanalytischer Grundlage Verlag
Hans Huber, Bern-Berlin.
STERBA, R. 1936 'Zur Theorie der bertragung' Imago 22

-9-






JONES, E. (1923) THE NATURE OF AUTO-SUGGESTION. INT. J. PSYCHOANAL., 4:293 (IJP)

THE NATURE OF AUTO-SUGGESTION1

ERNEST JONES

From time to time in the course of the past fifty years or more a fresh wave of interest
has been aroused in the subject of auto-suggestion. These waves fall into four or five
fairly well-marked periods, but it is not proposed to give any historical description of
them here. On reviewing the literature produced by these different periods one does
not, I am afraid, get the impression that the last half-century has seen any serious
addition to our knowledge of the subject, which remains much as it was in the days of
Baragnon, 2 seventy years ago, who discussed it under the name of automagntisation.
That being so, it would be tempting to seek elsewhere than in scientific curiosity for the
source of the interest that periodically continues to be taken in the subject, and one
might in this connection throw out the following suggestions. Assuming that there
really is a phenomenon of auto-suggestion, and that its therapeutic value can compare
with that of the usual suggestion treatment, then it is clear that the use of it presents two
features that are bound to make a wide appeal. In the first place, the idea caters to the
universal desire for 'free will' and flatters the narcissistic sense of omnipotence by
according with its favourite conception of the ego as a self-sufficing and self-acting
agent, independent of the outer world and able to gratify all its wishes by the incantation
of magic verbal formul.3 In the second place, it specifically delivers the patient from
the most dreaded form of outer dependence, namely the sexual transference which
psycho-analysis has shown to underlie

1Read before the Medical Section of the British Psychological Society, March 22, 1923.
2Baragnon: Etude du magntisme animal, 1853, pp. 198 et seq.
3On the narcissistic importance of words see Ferenczi:
Analysis, 1916, pp. 194 et seq.

Contributions to Psycho-

- 293 what must for the sake of convenience be termed hetero-suggestion.FN004 The
motives just indicated probably apply to the physician as well as to the patient, for in
treating numbers of patients en masse by 'auto-suggestion' he can gratify the hypnotist's
sense of power without needing to become aware of the accompanying personal (and
sexual) dependence of the patients. The medical dread of this transference relationship






is well known, and I surmise that we may also attribute to it the fact that so many
hypnotists have during the past forty years insisted on their preference for 'suggestion in
the waking state' to hypnotism proper; one need only instance the names of Bernheim,
Bramwell, Forel, van Renterghem and Vogt.
Leaving aside these questions of popular fashion and motive, we may turn to
consideration of some of the still unsolved problems relating to auto-suggestion. In
proposing discussion of these problems I am further moved by the consideration that so
far they have received no attention from the standpoint of psycho-analysis.
The first problem of all is of course whether there is such a thing at all as autosuggestion, i. e. whether there is any endopsychic process shewing the characteristics
that distinguish what we ordinarily call suggestion. When I raised this question in
opening the discussion on auto-suggestion at a recent meeting of this Society my remark
was evidently taken in jest, but I noted that both the reader of the paper (Dr. William
Brown) and all the other speakers confined what they had to say to the subject of
hetero-suggestion, so that my question cannot be regarded as unjustified; incidentally,
McDougall has expressed a similar scepticism.5
It is impossible to proceed, therefore, without first coming to some understanding about
what are the essential characteristics of suggestion in general. Here, unfortunately,
there is a lack of agreement in some important particulars, 6 and it is easy to see that the
view adopted by a given author in these respects determines his attitude towards the
problem of auto-suggestion. The difference of opinion mainly exists over which should
be regarded as the most important and characteristic

5McDougall: in his statement that this theory of transference is 'based merely on the
fact that some subjects show signs of erotic excitement when in hypnosis, and on the
Freudian prejudice, etc.' ('A Note on Suggestion.' Journal of Neurology and
Psychopathology, Vol. I. p. 4.) p. 9.
6See Bernard Hart: The Methods of Psychotherapy, Proc. Roy. Soc. Med. (Psych.
Sect.), Vol. XIII.
7Philips (a nom de guerre): Cours thorique et pratique de Braidisme, 1860, p. 29.
8The Action of Suggestion in Psychotherapy, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1910,
Vol. V, p. 210. Reprinted in my Papers on Psycho-Analysis, Third Ed., 1923, Chapter
XIX.
9Philips: (a nom de guerre): Cours thorique et pratique de Braidisme, 1860, p. 44.
10Philips: (a nom de guerre): Cours thrique et pratique de Braidisme, 1860, : The only
exception to this is with Moll's Summe Hypnose in which not a word is spoken, and this
affords one of the many interesting transitions between hetero- and auto-suggestion.






- 294 of the processes comprising suggestion. It is generally agreed that these can be grouped
under three headings. In the first place there is the emotional rapport existing between
the subject and the operator, the state determined by Durand (de Gros)7 hypotaxia and
by myself8 affective suggestion. This is indubitably the stage that precedes any other
process, and on its existence the later processes depend. Secondly, there is the
acceptance of the idea suggested, the process termed by Durand9 ideoplasty and by
myself10 verbal suggestion. Thirdly, there is the ultimate effect realised by this idea
after it has been incorporated into the personality.
I will now quote four of the most notable definitions that have been given of suggestion,
and it will be seen that they fall into two groups, according as the main importance is
attached to the second or third of these processes respectively. Bernheim11 gave the
broad definition of suggestion as 'l'acte par lequel une ide est introduite dans le cerveau
et accepte par lui'. McDougall, 12 with evidently the same point of view, has rendered
this more precise in the statement that 'Suggestion is a process of communication
resulting in the acceptance with conviction of the communicated proposition
independently of the subject's appreciation of any logically adequate grounds for its
acceptance'. In contrast with this attitude stands Janet's13 conception of suggestion as
the 'dveloppements complets et automatiques d'une ide qui se font en dehors de la
volont et de la perception personnelle du sujet'. Similarly Th. Lipps14 regards
suggestion as 'die Hervorrufung einer psychischen Wirkung, die normaler Weise nicht
aus der Weckung einer Vorstellung sich ergibt, durch Weckung

11Bernheim: Hypnotisme, Suggestion, Psychothrapie. 1903. dition, p. 24.

12McDougall: in his statement that this theory of transference is 'based merely on the
fact that some subjects show signs of erotic excitement when in hypnosis, and on the
Freudian prejudice, etc.' ('A Note on Suggestion.' Journal of Neurology and
Psychopathology, Vol. I, p. 4.) p. 10.
13Janet: Etat mental des Hystriques; Les Accidents mentaux, 1894, p. 30.
14Th. Lipps: Suggestion und Hypnose, Sitzungsbericht der bayerischen Akademie der
Wissenschaft, 1897 (1898), S. 394. It is a matter for regret that this essay, doubtless
because of its relative inaccessibility, is not more widely known, for it contains the most
searching discussion of the subject yet provided by any psychologist.
15Idem: Th. Lipps: Suggestion und Hypnose, Sitzungsbericht der bayerischen
Akademie der Wissenschaft, 1897 (1898), S. 394. It is a matter for regret that this essay,
doubtless because of its relative inaccessibility, is not more widely known, for it
contains the most searching discussion of the subject yet provided by any psychologist.
S. 392.






- 295 dieser Vorstellung' ('the evocation, by arousing an idea, of a psychical effect which
normally would not result from the arousing of such an idea'), and he further15 insists
that 'nicht die Weckung der Vorstellungen, sondern diese weitergehende psychische
Wirkung ist das Charakteristische der Suggestion. Diese psychische Wirkung ist das
eigentlich Suggerierte' (it is not the arousing of the ideas, but this further psychical
effect, that is the characteristic of suggestion. This psychical effect is what is really
'suggested'). There can be little doubt that the emphasis laid here by Janet and Lipps on
the further effects or action (Wirkung) of the suggested idea represents a definite
advance on the intellectualistic conceptions of Bernheim and McDougall. Even if the
latter would maintain that they too have in mind a psychical effect of the idea
introduced, it is plain that their definition refers chiefly to one effect only, namely,
disturbed judgement, and does not take into sufficient account the other abnormal
effects, such as hallucinatory sensations, influence on bodily processes, etc.
Lipps made two further steps in the nearer definition of the psychical action or effect
(Wirkung) in question. In the first place, he points out16 that what is remarkable in
connection with suggestion is not the actual nature of the effects, which can all be
produced by other means, but the way in which they are produced. It is the conditions
under which the effects follow an idea that are peculiar to suggestion, for these effects
would not follow the idea under other conditions. The characteristic of these conditions
he sees in a special combination of intact psychical energy with diminished psychical
excitability.17 By the latter phrase he means an inhibition of the counter-ideas which
normally would oppose the action of the suggested ones. This inhibition is of course
related to the contrasting freedom with which ideas are accepted from the operator, and
is thus the secondary result of the state of rapport mentioned above. He therefore
includes these two additional conclusions in his final definition of suggestion, which
is:18 'Die Hervorrufung einer ber das bloe Dasein einer Vorstellung hinausgehenden
psychischen Wirkung in einem Individuum, durch Weckung einer Vorstellung seitens
einer Person oder eines von dem Individuum verschiedenen Objektes, sofern diese
psychische Wirkung durch eine in auerordentlichem Mae stattfindende Hemmung
oder Lhmung der ber die nchste reproduzierende Wirkung der

16Th. Lipps: Zur Psychologie der Suggestion, Zeitschr. f. Hypnotismus, 1897, Band
VII, S. 95.
17Idem: Suggestion und Hypnose, Th. Lipps: Suggestion und Hypnose, Sitzungsbericht
der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaft, 1897 (1898), S. 394. It is a matter for
regret that this essay, doubtless because of its relative inaccessibility, is not more widely
known, for it contains the most searching discussion of the subject yet provided by any
psychologist. S. 520.






18Idem: Zur Psychologie der Suggestion, Th. Lipps: Suggestion und Hypnose,
Sitzungsbericht der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaft, 1897 (1898), S. 394. It is
a matter for regret that this essay, doubtless because of its relative inaccessibility, is not
more widely known, for it contains the most searching discussion of the subject yet
provided by any psychologist. S. 117.
- 296 Suggestion hinausgehenden Vorstellungsbewegung bedingt ist.' ('The evocation in an
individual, through an idea being aroused by another person or an object distinct from
the individual, of a psychical effect that goes beyond the mere existence of this idea,
provided always that this psychical effect is conditioned by an extraordinary inhibition
or paralysis of the ideational movement which passes beyond the proximate
reproductive effect of the suggestion.') He explicitly includes auto-suggestion in this
definition in a way which will presently be noted.
The actual phenomenology of the effects of suggestion are too well known to need
recounting here. Concerning their nature Lipps has shewn in detail that all of them,
even the eliciting of hallucinatory sensations, represent the normal logical consequences
of the suggested ideas, differing only from the usual consequences of the same idea in
that, through the inhibition of the criticizing ideas customarily operative, they are
allowed to proceed to their logical termination without hindrance. We may therefore
conclude that the characteristic of suggestion lies in the free development of the effects
of communicated ideas, the forces usually hindering this development being neutralised
by the presence of the rapport, or concentration on the idea of the operator. It is
generally agreed that this rapport consists of an emotional bond; as is well known,
psycho-analysts consider the bond to be sexual in nature and due to the re-animation of
an infantile attachment to a parent.
Our formulation of the three processes thus runs in order: rapport ; inhibition of all
mental processes except those suggested; free development of the latter. We are now
able to reduce the difference of opinion noted above to differences in the view held of
the way in which the rapport operates; all are agreed that it is in this that the operative
force resides. From this point of view the two schools of thought may be contrasted
somewhat as follows: According to one, the main thing is the remarkable influence
exerted by the operator, or hypnotist; granted this and the rest follows, the ideas
developing to their logical conclusion by the sheer force imparted to them. According
to the other school, the main thing is the subject's peculiar attitude towards the operator;
it is this which neutralises any critical ideas inimical to his. Psycho-analysts may
certainly be classed as belonging to the latter school. Some thirteen years ago, for
instance, I wrote:19 We can no longer regard the subject as a helpless automaton in the
hands of a strong-willed operator; it is nearer the truth to regard the operator as allowing
himself to play a part, and






19Idem: Zur Psychologie der Suggestion, Th. Lipps: Suggestion und Hypnose,
Sitzungsbericht der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaft, 1897 (1898), S. 394. It is
a matter for regret that this essay, doubtless because of its relative inaccessibility, is not
more widely known, for it contains the most searching discussion of the subject yet
provided by any psychologist. p. 220.
- 297 by no means an indispensable one, in a drama constructed and acted in the depths of the
subject's mind.'
From what has been said, it is not astonishing that the two views just described lead to
contrasting attitudes towards the subject of auto-suggestion. Those who expound the
former of the two views tend to decry the importance of auto-suggestion or else to deny
its existence altogether, to depreciate its practical value, and to attribute most of its
phenomena, whether therapeutic or pathogenic, to some more or less disguised form of
hetero-suggestion. In this group of authors may be mentioned Baragnon, 20 Camus and
Pagniez, 21 McDougall, 22 and Grasset;23 the last-named of these goes as far as to hint
that auto-suggestion is in most cases the result of previous hypnotism. Janet24 would
appear to take up an intermediate position; he ascribes at least a great many pathological
processes to auto-suggestion, apart from the intervention of an idea from without.
Forel25 also holds that 'Jede Suggestion wird durch Autosuggestion des Hypnotisierten
ergnzt und modifiziert.' ('Every suggestion is added to and modified by autosuggestion on the part of the hypnotised person.') At the other extreme there is
Baudouin, 26 the leading exponent of auto-suggestion, who holds the diametrically
opposite view that 'hetero-suggestion, even during induced sleep (i. e. hypnosis), is still
an auto-suggestion'. Similarly Levy-Suhl27 maintains: 'Jede Suggestionswirkung
beruht letzthin in einer Autosuggestion.' ('Every effect of suggestion rests ultimately on
an auto-suggestion.')
We thus return to the problem of what phenomena, if any, are to be classed as belonging
to auto-suggestion. The matter is certainly not to be settled by simply asking whether
the operative ideas have originated from within or from without. In the first place, this
is often very hard to determine, and in a certain sense it might even be maintained that
all ideas take their ultimate source from the outer world. Secondly, the question does
not touch the essential part of the problem, for clinical psychology no longer regards
ideas as active agents in themselves; any activity they may exhibit is due only to their
being representatives of

20Baragnon: Etude de magntisme animal, 1853, pp. 198 et seq.

21Camus and Pagniez: Isolement et Psychothrapie, 1904, p. 57.
22McDougall: in his statement that this theory of transference is 'based merely on the
fact that some subjects show signs of erotic excitement when in hypnosis, and on the






Freudian prejudice, etc.' ('A Note on Suggestion.'
Psychopathology, Vol. I, p. 4.)

Journal of Neurology and

23Grasset: L'hypnotisme et la Suggestion, 1904, p. 131.

24Janet: Etat mental des Hystriques; Les Accidents mentaux, 1894, p. 71.
25Forel: Der Hypnotismus, II. Auflage, S. 122.
26Baudouin, Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion, Engl. Trans., 1920, p. 204.
27Levy-Suhl: Die hypnotische Heilweise und ibre Technik, 1922, S. 33.
28Idem: Baudouin, Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion, Engl. Trans., 1920, p. 204.
29Lipps: Suggestion und Hypnose, Sitzungsbericht der bayerischen Akademie der
Wissenschaft, 1897 (1898), S. 117.
30Idem: Suggestion und Hypnose, Sitzungsbericht der bayerischen Akademie der
Wissenschaft, 1897 (1898), S. 96.
31Baudouin: suggestion and Auto-Suggestion, Engl. Trans., 1920, pp. 131, 132, etc.
32Idem: Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion, Engl. Trans., 1920, pp. 27, 141 etc.
- 298 some impulse or other. We must therefore concentrate our attention on the nature of the
dynamic factors at work, and in this way seek to determine whether two classes of them
can be detected, corresponding with hetero-suggestion and auto-suggestion respectively.
Several writers, e. g. Baudouin, 28 insist that the ideas produce their effect only through
acting outside the field of consciousness, but being unfamiliar with what goes on in this
unconscious layer of the mind they were unable to throw any light on the nature of the
forces operative in the transformation of the 'idea' into its effect, i. e. the 'realisation' of
the idea. Lipps29 holds that in auto-suggestion, just as in hetero-suggestion, there is a
general inhibition of mental excitability, particularly of ideas antagonistic to the ones
being 'suggested'. In hetero-suggestion this is brought about through a high degree of
psychical investment of the idea of the operator; in psycho-analytical terminology, a
hyper-cathexis of the idea of the operator is correlated with a hypo-cathexis of all ideas
in conflict with his. Now is there a group of phenomena, to be called auto-suggestion,
in which there is a corresponding hypercathexis of a given idea to account for the
general hypo-cathexis that Lipps maintains to be present, and, if so, what is known of
the nature of this idea? The only suggestion he makes in this connection is30 that the
part of the ego communicating the idea is to be regarded as a foreign object to the part
that receives it, but he throws no further light on this remarkable splitting of the
personality. Baudouin31 repeatedly insists also on the essential importance of
relaxation in the practice of auto-suggestion, and it is evident that this relation is
identical with the inhibition of mental excitability described by Lipps. Baudouin's32
conception of the concentration of attention necessary in addition to the general






relaxationthe two features which in his opinion comprise the essentials of the practice
of auto-suggestioncorresponds further with what we have called hyper-cathexis of a
particular idea, but he never mentions any idea to which this applies except the idea
which is being 'suggested'.
It might be supposed that psycho-analysis, adhering as it does to the second of the two
schools described above, the school that lays stress on the part played in the depths of
the subject's mind, would at once lend countenance to auto-suggestion as a phenomenon
which obviously
- 299 supports the view in question. On the other hand it would appear to contradict the
psycho-analytical view concerning the significance of the idea of the operator, at all
events unless it can be shewn that in auto-suggestion there is a hyper-cathexis of
another idea which is equivalent to that of the operator.
It is time to turn from this general discussion of the problem and consider the actual
data bearing on it. It must be said, however, that it is by no means easy to ascertain
these. To begin with, McDougall's33 criticism that in so many of the examples cited of
auto-suggestion one cannot exclude the operation of hetero-suggestion is evidently
justified; it obviously applies to a great part of Cou's performances. Indeed, this factor
has also to be taken into account when a person practises 'auto-suggestion' after reading
a book of instructions, for the idea of the authority behind this book must often play a
considerable part. McDougall further objects to the wide application of the term 'autosuggestion' to such phenomena as the ready acceptance of propositions which are
congruent with any strong conative tendencies; that the wish is father to the thought is
comprehensible without invoking any such special process as 'auto-suggestion'.
Lipps34 makes a similar protest, one which would seem to apply to a large number of
the examples quoted by the various writers on the subject, Baudouin, 35 Bonnet, 36
Parkyn, 37 etc.
If we now attempt to exclude these two groups, a task not easy to carry out, what
phenomena have we left that may serve our purpose? They would seem to reduce
themselves to two. In the first place there are the descriptions of experiments carried
out on themselves by various medical investigators. We have many such accounts,
from Cardan, 38 in the sixteenth century, who is said to have cured himself of gout by
this means, to Libault's39 self-cure of migraine. The best accounts are perhaps those
given by Baudouin, 40 Birot, 41 Blch, 42 Lagrave43 and

33McDougall: McDougall in his statement that this theory of transference is 'based

merely on the fact that some subjects show signs of erotic excitement when in hypnosis,
and on the Freudian prejudice, ect.' ('A Note on Suggestion.' Journal of Neurology and
Psychopathology, Vol. I, p. 4.) p. 9.






34Lipps: Suggestion und Hypnose, Suggestion und Hypnose, Sitzungsbericht der
bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaft, 1897 (1898), S. 392.
35Baudouin: Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion, Engl. Trans., 1920, p. 204.
36Bonnet: Prcis d'auto-suggestion volontaire, 1911.
37Parkyn: Auto-Suggestion, 1916.
38Cardan: De Subtilitate, 1550, lib. XXI.
39Libault: Du sommeil provoqu, 1866.
40Baudouin: Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion, Engl. Trans., 1920, p. 204.
41Birot: Annales du Magntisme, 1915, t. 11, p. 253.
42Blch: L'auto-suggestion comme moyen thrapeutique physique et moral, Rev. de
l'hypnotisme, Fv. 1897.
43Lagrave: Quelques expriences d'auto-hypnotisme et d'auto-suggestion, 1890.
44P. E. Lvy: L'ducation rationnelle de la volont, 1898.
- 300 Lvy.44 On reading through these and other accounts one may learn something about
the effects that are to be produced by means of 'auto-suggestion', but very little indeed
on the point at present under consideration. Practically no idea is mentioned on which
the mind is concentrated except the particular ones to be 'suggested'. This evidently
does not provide us with the motive force for which we are seeking, so one would infer
that the hyper-cathexis in question must take place entirely in the unconscious. The
inference should not be astonishing, for it will be remembered that the same is to a great
extent true of hetero-suggestion and hypnotism.
The second set of phenomena are those known under the name of auto-hypnosis. They
should be more promising, for more reasons than one. I agree with Freud's45 viewin
contradistinction to Bernheim'sthat the state of suggestibility is simply a forme fruste
of hypnosis. In any case there would seem to be better prospect of elucidating the
psychology of either suggestion or auto-suggestion by studying the state in which the
manifestations are magnified. It was for a similar reason that in my previous study of
suggestion46 I largely confined myself to the problem of hypnotism.
Phenomena that come into consideration from the point of view of 'auto-hypnosis' are
met with in four circumstances. (1) Mediumistic trances. (2) Hysterical dream states.
(3) Religious and mystical ecstasies. (4) A miscellaneous group in which states of
exaltation are indulged in more or less as a habit, either in connection with narcotics or
not.
The first of these has to be excluded on the ground that in the accounts given of them
attention is devoted almost entirely to the messages purported to be delivered in this






way, the mental state itself of the subject being a matter of only subordinate interest.
The second state has been studied analytically by Freud47 and Abraham, 48 and the
latter author specifically draws a comparison between them and hypnosis. The
conclusions arrived at by these studies which interest us most here are that the dream
states in question represent substitutive gratifications of day-dreams

45Freud: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Engl. Transl., 1922, p. 100.
46Freud: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Engl. Transl., 1922, p. 100.
47Freud: Allgemeines ber den hysterischen Anfall. Reprinted in his Sammlung kleiner
Schriften', Zweite Folge, 1909.
48Abraham: ber hysterische Traumzustnde, Jabrbuch der Psychoanalyse, 1910, Bd.
II, S. 1.
49Idem: Abraham: ber hysterische Traumzustnde, Jabrbuch der Psychoanalyse,
1910, Bd. II, S. I.
- 301 which formerly ended in masturbation. The earlier phases of the state are pleasurable,
but the culmination, which replaces the sexual act once indulged in, is usually
accompanied by considerable degrees of anxiety. The intense concentration of attention
(which Abraham terms Besetzung, i. e. cathexis) or self-absorption, whichjust as in
'auto-suggestion'is the counterpart of the withdrawal from the outer world, is
exclusively concerned with the more or less conscious sexual phantasy. It is known that
phantasies preceding or accompanying masturbation are predominantly incestuous in
origin, hence the feeling of guilt attaching to them, so that we are led to the same
conclusion here as is reached from the study of the ordinary hypnotic rapport, namely,
that the essential feature of such states is the revival of the infantile repressed idea of the
parent. Indeed, Abraham49 points out that these hysterical states may either occur
spontaneously or be induced through the presence of some person by whom the subject
feels himself to be 'hypnotised'. Two features therefore stand out here, the importance
of auto-erotism and of incestuous attachment to the father. We also note once again the
great difficulty of distinguishing between hetero- and auto-suggestion, and this must
incline us to the conclusion that either there is only one process concerned in all the
phenomena grouped under these two names or else, if there are two, they must be
extremely closely related.
In the third set also, the religious ecstasies, it is difficult to exclude the possibility of an
important part being played by the idea of an external person, namely, God. This is of
course more evident in the trances of Christian saints than in those of other mystics, but
it is worthy of note that even in the Indian form of mysticism the word yoga is defined
as 'the experimental union of the individual with the divine'.50 This fact need not lead






us immediately to exclude the group in question from the category of 'auto-hypnosis',
but it is one to be borne well in mind when discussing the possible relation of hetero- to
auto-suggestion. I do not propose here to enter on a discussion of religious ecstasy,
especially as the material exists in a readily accessible form.51 I need only remind you
of two of its most characteristic features. The first is that a sexual under-current is
plainly in evidence in all the accounts given by saints and mystics themselves, and that,
as Pfister52 has shewn in his interesting

50William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902, p. 400.

51Grres: Christliche Mystik, 4 Bde., 18361842; Ribet: Mystique Divine, 1890.
52Pfister: Die Frmmigkeit des Grafen Ludwig von Zinzendorf, 1910.
53Oeuvres de St. Teresa, Bouix dition, t. III, pp. 421423.
- 302 study of von Zinzendorf, the sublimations often enough undergo regression into the
crudest sexuality. The second feature is the extraordinarily intense feeling of union that
characterises the most exalted states. I will quote only one illustration of this, from
Saint Teresa, 53 the greatest expert in this field of experience. 'In the orison of union,
the soul is fully awake as regards God, but wholly asleep as regards things of this world
and in respect of herself She is utterly dead to the things of the world and lives
solely in God I do not even know whether in this state she has enough life to
breathe. It seems to me she has not; or at least that if she does breathe she is unaware of
it Thus does God, when he raises a soul to union with Himself, suspend the natural
action of all her faculties. She neither sees, hears, nor understands, so long as she is
united with God God establishes Himself in the interior of this soul in such a way
that when she returns to herself it is wholly impossible for her to doubt that she has been
in God and God in her.' It would seem that in such orisons object-love tends to revert to
the more primitive stage of identification, a point which we shall see to be of some
importance. The same is apparently true for the milder states to which Catholics refer
under the name of 'recollection'.
An even closer resemblance to 'auto-hypnosis' is presented in the well-known yoga
system of the East.54 The two preliminary states of prtyhra and dhran correspond
with the relaxation and concentration respectively which are the essentials in the
practice of auto-suggestion. The final state, called by the Vedantists samdhi and by the
Buddists dhyna, has been thus described:55 'Then we know ourselves for what we
truly are, free, immortal, omnipotent, loosed from the finite, and identical with the
Atman or Universal Soul.' We see here a regression to the most primitive and uncritical
form of narcissism. Some years ago I had the good fortune to treat a patient who had
graduated highly in the yoga hierarchy. In the psycho-analysis of his case, which I
published at length, 56 two features were specially prominent in this connection, and






these were the same two as we noted above in respect of the hysterical dream states.
The part played by the idea of God-Father in the auto-hypnotic state was unmistakable,
and, further, the patient manipulated to an extraordinary extent the various yoga
instructions in terms of what Sadger has called secondary auto-erotism.

54On the resemblances see Kellner: Yoga: Eine Skizze, 1896.

55Vivekananda: Raja Yoga, 1896; Cited by James:
Experience, 1902, p. 400.

The Varieties of Religious

56Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse, 1912, Band IV, S. 564.

- 303 The task of isolating a pure form of auto-hypnosis, and of distinguishing it from
ordinary hypnosis, continues to elude us, but we will try our luck once more with the
fourth set of phenomena indicated above. In the cases of this class collected by William
James, 57 he attaches considerable importance to mystical states induced by various
narcotic drugs, particularly alcohol, nitrous oxide and chloroform. This is worthy of
note, for we now know the close dependence of such states on repressed homosexuality
, and further the nearness of the latter to narcissism. Of the instances he quotes of
sporadic and apparently spontaneous trance states the most perfect account is that given
by John Addington Symonds, and those familiar with the writings of this author will
remember what a part is played in them by repressed homosexuality. Symond's own
description of the state contains the following passages: 'In proportion as these
conditions of ordinary consciousness (i. e. space, time, sensation, etc.) were subtracted,
the sense of an underlying or essential consciousness acquired intensity. At last nothing
remained but a pure, absolute, abstract Self. The universe became without form and
void of content. But Self persisted, formidable in its vivid keenness, feeling the most
poignant doubts about reality.' It was typical of his states of trance that they ended in an
anxiety attack, just as the dream states described by Abraham. In them we get hardly
any hint of the idea of an outside being; the whole of consciousness is confined to the
idea of self. On the other hand, the curious personal experiences described by the
Canadian alienist, Bucke, 58 have clearly a reference to the outer world. In them he
came to realise that the universe is 'a living Presence' and became conscious in himself
of eternal life. The account he gives of his union with what he terms the cosmic
consciousness is probably only an attenuated form of what a more strictly religious
person would have felt to be union with God.
What inferences may now be drawn from consideration of the data at our disposal? The
first conclusion I think we are justified in coming to is that it is extraordinarily difficult
to draw any sharp line between hetero- and auto-suggestion. The relationship is so very
intimate as to make it probable that the agents operating in the two cases are merely
variants and not distinct forces. This conclusion has more far-reaching consequences






than might appear at first sight, so I will briefly review the evidence for it. It is both
clinical and psychological. Clinically every physician who endeavours to teach his
patients how to use auto-suggestion,

57James: The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902, pp. 387 et seq.

58Bucke: Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind, 1897.
59For the sake of simplicity, and also because it is the more important in this
connection, the idea of the Father alone is referred to instead of that of both parents.
- 304 as I did myself some twenty years ago, will probably be able to confirm my experience
of finding how very hard it is to estimate the importance of the part played by the idea
of the physician in the patient's mind, and to distinguish between this and the other
factors at work. The gradation between hetero- and auto-suggestion in such situations
seems to be quite imperceptible. The same is true of the hypnoid states of hysteria,
which may occur either in the presence of another person by whom the subject feels
himself to be influenced or else quite spontaneously. Even in the cases of religious
trances we have noted the interrelation between intense self-absorption on the one hand
and concentration on the idea of an external person on the other. Then, again, the actual
manifestations of the two conditions are quite identical. They may be said to include all
the effects that mental functioning can potentially bring about in both the mental and the
physical fields, from the most complete delusional and hallucinatory formations in the
former to the gravest interferences with all kinds of bodily functions in the latter, and in
rare cases even with life itself. Psychologically the two conditions are quite identical
but for one single point. In both there is a hypercathexis of one train of thought with
hypo-cathexis of most others. The state of relaxation, orto use Lipp's more accurate
terminologyof psychical inhibition, is doubtless the reason why the judgement of
external reality can be so profoundly affected, and with this is also lost the criticism of
endopsychic ideation, including repression. It will be noted that these two latter
functions are two out of the six with which Freud credits that part of the ego which he
terms the ego-ideal. In hetero- and auto-suggestion there is equally the consciousness
of surrender of the sense of will and feeling of effort. The one point in which the two
conditions differ is in respect of the idea on which concentration has taken place. With
hetero-suggestion we know that this is the idea of the Father imago, 59 which has been
aroused through contact with a suitable substitute. With auto-suggestion all the
evidence points to the idea being that of the actual Self.
I next propose to sketch a theory that shall take into account the preceding
considerations. If I am right in concluding that the unconscious hypercathexis is of the
idea of the Father in hetero-suggestion and of the Self in auto-suggestion, then we must






search for some point of intimate contact between these two ideas. A clue in this
direction is afforded

60Freud: Group Psychology: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Engl.
Transl., 1922, p. 77.
- 305 by Freud's60 formula that the hypnotist replaces the ego ideal. For if we enquire into
the nature and origin of the ego ideal, we discover that it is compounded of two
constituents, derived from the Father and the Self respectively; so that here we have a
nodal point connecting the two ideas.
It will be remembered that the original (primal) narcissism of the infant becomes in the
course of development distributed in four directions, the actual proportion in each of
these varying enormously with different individuals. One portion remains in an
unaltered state attached to the real ego; this is probably the one concerned in the genesis
of hypochondria. A second portion is deflected from any direct sexual goal and
becomes attached to the idea of the parent, leading to adoration, devotion and general
over-estimation. It is important to bear in mind that to begin with this process is much
more a matter of narcissistic identification than of any form of object-love. A third is
transferred on to an ideal ego and is one of the constituents of the 'ego ideal'. The fourth
is gradually transformed into object-love. Now the second and third of these commonly
fuse during the latency period of childhood or even earlier. The form assumed by the
resulting ego ideal is largely derived from the ideas and mental attitudes of the father,
the bond being effected through the second portion of narcissistic libido mentioned
above, that attached to what may be called the father ideal. On the other hand, the
energy that gives the ego ideal its significance is wholly derived ultimately from
narcissistic libido. There are three routes for this: (1) directly from the original
narcissism of the primary ego (Third portion mentioned above); (2) via the attachment
to the father ideal (Second portion); (3) via the regression to narcissistic identification
with the father that often takes place after a disappointment at the lack of gratification of
object-love (Fourth portion).
When the hypnotist, as Freud says, takes the place of the ego ideal, what happens is
presumably this: the thought of him becomes identified in the unconscious with that of
the father, and in this way the constituents of the ego ideal which were built up in
connection with the idea of the fatherits form and two out of the three narcissistic
components enumerated aboveare re-animated. Perhaps, incidentally, this is the
reason why it is so difficult for the hypnotist to give effective suggestions that obviously
conflict with the father ideal, such as criminal and immoral suggestions.
Leaving for the moment this question of the mechanism whereby narcissism becomes
re-animated, a matter to which we shall presently






- 306 return, I wish to say a little about the effects of the process. Many clinicians are
inclined to divide the effects of 'auto-suggestion' into two groups, which might be called
pathogenic and therapeutic respectively. To take the pathogenic ones first: the notion is
that 'auto-suggestion' may create various neurotic symptoms by allowing certain
'morbid' ideas to realise their full effects unchecked by others which normally would
counteract them. Perhaps as good an example as any is the case of the oft-quoted
medical student who imagined he was acquiring every disease except housemaid's knee.
I would recommend that we should not use the term 'auto-suggestion' for this class of
phenomenon, for the following reasons. The essence of such symptom-formation
consists in a conflict between repressed libidinal wishes and the repressing force exerted
from the side of the ego, particularly of the ego ideal. From one point of view the
symptom might roughly be called a punishment inflicted on the personality by the ego
for the striving towards gratification on the part of the repressed forbidden wishes. The
fears of our medical student, for instance, represent the threat of castration (disease) as a
punishment for repressed Oedipus wishes (incest with the mother and castration of the
father). The morbid ideas that were allowed to develop during the reading of his textbooks merely afforded suitable material that could be used by his ego for this purpose.
So that to refer to the whole process as one of 'auto-suggestion' is to confine attention to
one aspect of the process, and not to the most important aspect. The resultant symptom
is only in part ego-syntonic, i. e. in harmony with the ego, the repressed wishes being
not at all so, while the term 'auto-suggestion' should surely be applied only to mental
processes that are wholly ego-syntonic. Further, one misses here the note of
omnipotence so characteristic of the typical forms of 'auto-suggestion'.
What we have called the therapeutic effects of 'auto-suggestion', on the other hand,
differ in both these respects. They are marked to begin with by a belief, more or less
profound, in the omnipotence of thought. The catch formula 'Every day in every way I
grow better and better' means, if it means anything, 'I have only to wish to become
stronger, handsomer, cleverer, self-confident and free from any suffering, and it will be
so; my wishes are all-powerful and brook no obstacle'. Then, in contrast with
'pathogenic auto-suggestion', the therapeutic tendencies in question are throughout egosyntonic.
Successful auto-suggestion presupposes harmony even between the narcissism of the
ego ideal and that which has remained attached to the real ego. It is the conflict
between the ego ideal on the one hand and the

61Idem: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Engl. Transl., 1922, pp. 107,
108.
- 307 -






real ego with its associated allo-erotism on the other that is responsible for neurotic
states. How fraught the union is with consequences we know from Freud's61 studies of
mania. The two states in which man's sense of power over both himself and his
environment, and often his actual power, is at its maximum are, first, acute mania, and,
secondly, the exaltation that follows on sudden conversion to a significant idea, most
often a religious one. In both these cases, however, there has previously been a
specially deep cleavage between the actual ego and the ego ideal, so that the
reconciliation between the two results in a tremendous accession of energy through the
release of the primary narcissism from the tyranny of the ego ideal. Yogi are reputed to
display something of the same sense of power and self-content, which in their case is
due to a union brought about by the more gradual process of auto-suggestion.
On the basis of the foregoing considerations I would formulate the following theory.
Suggestion is essentially a libidinal process: through the unification of the various
forms and derivatives of narcissism the criticizing faculty of the ego ideal is suspended,
so that ego-syntonic ideas are able to follow unchecked the pleasure-pain principle in
accordance with the primitive belief in the omnipotence of thought. Such ideas may
either develop to their logical goal (beliefs, judgements, etc.) or regress to their
sensorial elements (hallucinatory gratification). The essential part of the unification in
question is that between the real ego and the ego ideal. The condition under which it
takes place is that the repressed allo-erotic impulses are to be renounced. This is made
possible by a regression of their libido in the direction of auto-erotism, which results in
a further reinforcement of the narcissism. If the primary narcissism has been released
and re-animated directly, by concentration upon the idea of self, the process may be
termed auto-suggestion; if it has been preceded by a stage in which the ego ideal is
resolved into the earlier father ideal, the process may be termed hetero-suggestion.
If this view proves to be correct, then the old question of whether most heterosuggestion is really auto-suggestion or whether most auto-suggestion is really heterosuggestion must be regarded in another perspective. It is, in the first place, a much less
important problem than has often been thought, for that the essential agent in both is
narcissism is a more fundamental consideration than the question of the particular way
in which this has been mobilised in a given case. It is highly probably that the process
of re-animating narcissism may proceed to varying depths in different psychological
conditions; that suggestibility varies greatly
- 308 in different persons is of course well known. The fact that primary narcissism is more
fundamental than the father ideal itself, and our clinical experience that the chief part
even in hetero-suggestion is played by agents within the subject's mind, are
considerations which incline one not to contradict Baudouin's opinion that more weight
must be attached to auto-suggestion than to hetero-suggestion, though one should add






the modification that perhaps the latter process may prove in most cases in practice a
necessary stage in the evocation of the former.
Freud62 thinks that the uncanny and enigmatic qualities that cling to the idea of
hypnosis can be accounted for only by assuming that the regression to the infantile
cenception of the Father re-animates the inherited attitude towards the primal Father of
the horde in savage times. The view here expressed could be brought into accord with
this by supposing a similar re-animation of the well-known enormous narcissism of
primitive man, with his absolute belief in the magical omnipotence of thought.
The theory here propounded perhaps throws some light on two further problems, the
relation of hypnosis to sleep and to 'will-power' respectively. That the hypnotic state is
psychologically exceedingly akin to sleep is well known, and is indicated in the very
word itself. The fact has given rise to much speculation, but it should become more
comprehensible when one recollects that sleep is the most complete expression of
narcissism known, i. e. of the state which we here suppose to underlie that of hypnosis.
Without wishing to embark on a discussion of the nature of will, I may briefly state my
agreement with Lipp's63 view that the sense of will, and of striving or effort altogether,
really emanates from a consciousness of inhibition, orput in more modern language
an intuition that in respect of the idea in question the conscious ego is inhibiting other,
unconscious, mental processes. At all events it is plain that the will is specially
connected with the conscious ego, and particularly the ego ideal. Most authors lay great
stress on the practical importance, in both hetero- and auto-suggestion, of avoiding so
far as possible any sense of effort, exercise of will power or even of forced attention,
and this might well be correlated with the view here expressed of the necessity for
suspending the activity of the ego ideal. The exhortations of a patient's relatives that he
should 'use his will-power', or his 'self-control', succeed only when the strength of the
ego ideal is definitely greater than that of the

62Idem: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Engl. Transl., 1922, pp. 95
99.
63Lipps: Suggestion und Hypnose, Sitzungsbericht der bayerischen Akademie der
Wissenschaft, 1897 (1898), S. 428, 472.
- 309 repressed libidinal wishes, as it is in the normal. It is natural that the relatives should
ask for this desideratum, but they overlook the fact that the very existence of neurotic
symptoms shews that in all probability the two sides of the conflict are more evenly
matched than they hope. It is only rarely that much can be accomplished by simple
methods of reinforcing the ego ideal, i. e. the repressions.






Finally, the theory here advanced leads me to attempt some re-statement of our
formulations regarding the mechanism of mental healing in general. The essential
problem is the fate of the repressed allo-erotic (usually incestuous) impulses which
conflict with the ego ideal and constitute the important dynamic factor in every neurotic
symptom. Only a part of them can be directly sublimated, a solution which the patient
has already tried, though, it is true, under unfavourable psychological conditions. Now
it would seem that all possible means of dealing with the situation therapeutically
reduce themselves ultimately to two, and to two only. Either the libidinal energy of
these impulses can be, more or less completely, re-converted into the narcissism from
which they proceeded, this being effected by a regression in an auto-erotic direction, or
else the assimilative capacity of the ego ideal can be raised. These two principles are, as
will be shewn in a moment, mutually contradictory and therefore to a large extent
incompatible with each other, and this explains why it is fundamentally impossible to
combine the two methods of treatment based on them, those of suggestion and psychoanalysis respectively. One may lay down the dictum that if the patient is not treated by
psycho-analysis he will treat himself by means of suggestion, orput more fullyhe
will see to it that he will get treated by means of suggestion whatever other views the
physician may have on the subject.
When a neurotic patient comes for any kind of treatment he will soon transfer
unconsciously on to the idea of the physician various repressed allo-erotic tendencies, i.
e. he will take the physician as a love-object (provided, of course, that the treatment
continues long enough). If the treatment is not psycho-analysis one of two things will
happen. The patient may become aware of affection for the physician. Then probably
symptoms will improve, libido being withdrawn from them and transferred to the idea
of the physician. I suspect, however, that in these cases true educative treatment by
suggestion or any allied method is rarely successful. What usually happens is that the
improvement is dependent on continued contact with the physician, and even this has to
be of a specially satisfactory kind. When the physician's attention is withdrawn the
symptoms tend to re-appear. The alternative to this course of events is that the
alloerotism
- 310 regresses to the stage of narcissistic identification with the physician, that is, the father
ideal. The educative suggestions then made are more likely to have a lasting effect, the
reason being that the stage to which the patient's libidinal organisation is reduced
approximates closely to that of true narcissism, so that when he leaves the physician he
still has himself as a love-object. This is certainly the direction that most neurotics
spontaneously take, for it spares them the suffering of symptoms, the distress at having
to recognise their repressed allo-erotism, and the pangs of disappointed love. It is the
great reason, as I hinted at the outset of my paper, why auto-suggestion is so widely
preferred to hetero-suggestion, with all its potentialities of allo-erotism. The practical






drawback to auto-suggestion clinically is that it is in so many cases harder to mobilise
the narcissism in this way than by means of hetero-suggestion. The drawback to any
form of suggestion is that what peace of mind it gives is purchased at the expense of an
important part of the personality being impeded in development, with consequent lack
of stability; the allo-erotism that should progress to objectlove, altruism and the various
sublimations of life regress towards auto-erotism, with all its stultifying potentialities.
In psycho-analysis, on the other hand, the aim of the treatment is to effect some
reconciliationor at least tolerancebetween the ego ideal and the repressed alloerotism. As in other forms of treatment, the allo-erotic transference tends to regress to a
stage in which the analyst is identified with the father component of the ego ideal, i. e.
with the father ideal, and this tendency has to be carefully watched by the analyst.
When the ego ideal begins to raise serious protests against accepting the repressed
tendencies that are being brought to light by the analytic procedure, the well-known
state of resistance ensues. Now the most securely entrenched form of resistance, 64 one
to which there is a tendency in all analyses, is that in which the patient identifies the
analyst with his real ego, projects on to him his own repressed mental processes, and
then severely criticizes him from the standpoint of his ego ideal. This situation is the
most formidable met with in psycho-analytic work, for all object-relationship between
analyst and patient may be suspended, and the analysis cannot proceed until this is reestablished. As it is characteristically accompanied by such manifestations as arrogant
conceit, the analyst often says that a limit has been set to analytic possibilities by

64An excellent description of the manifestations of this is given by Abraham: ber eine
besondere Form des neurotischen Widerstandes gegen die psychoanalytische Methodik,
Internat. Zeitschr. f. Psychoanalyse, 1919, Bd. V, S. 173.
- 311 the patient's narcissism, overlooking the vital consideration that the narcissism is not a
primary one, but has been secondarily resorted to as a defence against repressed alloerotism. It may be said, therefore, that the success of an analysis depends very largely
on the extent to which the analyst can manage to preserve an object-relationship to
himself in the patient's mind, for it is just this relationship that has to be brought to
consciousness and harmonised with the ego ideal.
It will thus be seen that the aims of the hypnotist and the analyst are diametrically
opposed. The former really seeks to strengthen the patient's narcissism, the latter to
divert it into more developed forms of mental activity. The psychological situation
(narcissistic identification) most favourable to the one aim is fatal to the other.
I have considered here the contrast between suggestion and analysis in its therapeutic
aspects only. It is probable, however, that it is applicable over far wider fields. The
contrast between auto-erotism and allo-erotism on which it rests, i. e. between






infantilism and adult life, may be correlated with the whole difference in outlook and
conduct between the mental attitude of introversion and exclusion of reality, on the one
hand, and adjustment to the world of reality on the other: between what may be called
the Eastern and the Western methods of dealing with life.

4I cannot refrain from remarking here on the very imperfect acquaintance with psychoanalytic writings displayed by McDougall in his statement that this theory of
transference is 'based merely on the fact that some subjects show signs of erotic
excitement when in hypnosis, and on the Freudian prejudice, etc.' ('A Note on
Suggestion.' Journal of Neurology and Psychopathology, Vol. I, p. 4.)
- 312 -






(1950) ON COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE. INT. J. PSYCHO-ANAL., 31:81 (IJP)

ON COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE1
PAULA HEIMANN

This short note on counter-transference has been stimulated by certain observations I

made in seminars and control analyses. I have been struck by the widespread belief
amongst candidates that the counter-transference is nothing but a source of trouble.
Many candidates are afraid and feel guilty when they become aware of feelings towards
their patients and consequently aim at avoiding any emotional response and at
becoming completely unfeeling and 'detached'.
When I tried to trace the origin of this ideal of the 'detached' analyst, I found that our
literature does indeed contain descriptions of the analytic work which can give rise to
the notion that a good analyst does not feel anything beyond a uniform and mild
benevolence towards his patients, and that any ripple of emotional waves on this smooth
surface represents a disturbance to be overcome. This may possibly derive from a
misreading of some of Freud's statements, such as his comparison with the surgeon's
state of mind during an operation, or his simile of the mirror. At least these have been
quoted to me in this connection in discussions on the nature of the counter-transference.
On the other hand, there is an opposite school of thought, like that of Ferenczi, which
not only acknowledges that the analyst has a wide variety of feelings towards his
patient, but recommends that he should at times express them openly. In her warmhearted paper 'Handhabung der bertragung auf Grund der Ferenczischen Versuche'
(Int. Zeitschr. f. Psychoanal., Bd. XXII, 1936) Alice Balint suggested that such honesty
on the part of the analyst is helpful and in keeping with the respect for truth inherent in
psycho-analysis. While I admire her attitude, I cannot agree with her conclusions.
Other analysts again have claimed that it makes the analyst more 'human' when he
expresses his feelings to his patient and that it helps him to build up a 'human'
relationship with him.
For the purpose of this paper I am using the term 'counter-transference' to cover all the
feelings which the analyst experiences towards his patient.
It may be argued that this use of the term is not correct, and that counter-transference
simply means transference on the part of the analyst. However, I would suggest that the
prefix 'counter' implies additional factors.






In passing it is worth while remembering that transference feelings cannot be sharply
divided from those which refer to another person in his own right and not as a parent
substitute. It is often pointed out that not everything a patient feels about his analyst is
due to transference, and that, as the analysis progresses, he becomes increasingly more
capable of 'realistic' feelings. This warning itself shows that the differentiation between
the two kinds of feelings is not always easy.
My thesis is that the analyst's emotional response to his patient within the analytic
situation represents one of the most important tools for his work. The analyst's countertransference is an instrument of research into the patient's unconscious.
The analytic situation has been investigated and described from many angles, and there
is general agreement about its unique character. But my impression is that it has not
been sufficiently stressed that it is a relationship between two persons. What
distinguishes this relationship from others, is not the presence of feelings in one partner,
the patient, and their absence in the other, the analyst, but above all the degree

1Paper read at the 16th International Psycho-Analytical Congress, Zrich, 1949. After
presenting this paper at the Congress my attention was drawn to a paper by Leo
Berman: 'Countertransferences and Attitudes of the Analyst in the Therapeutic Process, '
Psychiatry, Vol. XII, No. 2, May, 1949. The fact that the problem of the countertransference has been put forward for discussion practically simultaneously by different
workers indicates that the time is ripe for a more thorough research into the nature and
function of the counter-transference. I agree with Berman's basic rejection of emotional
coldness on the part of the analyst, but I differ in my conclusions concerning the use to
be made of the analyst's feelings towards his patient.
- 81 of the feelings experienced and the use made of them, these factors being
interdependent. The aim of the analyst's own analysis, from this point of view, is not to
turn him into a mechanical brain which can produce interpretations on the basis of a
purely intellectual procedure, but to enable him, to sustain the feelings which are stirred
in him, as opposed to discharging them (as does the patient), in order to subordinate
them to the analytic task in which he functions as the patient's mirror reflection.
If an analyst tries to work without consulting his feelings, his interpretations are poor. I
have often seen this in the work of beginners, who, out of fear, ignored or stifled their
feelings.
We know that the analyst needs an evenly hovering attention in order to follow the
patient's free associations, and that this enables him to listen simultaneously on many
levels. He has to perceive the manifest and the latent meaning of his patient's words,
the allusions and implications, the hints to former sessions, the references to childhood






situations behind the description of current relationships, etc. By listening in this
manner the analyst avoids the danger of becoming preoccupied with any one theme and
remains receptive for the significance of changes in themes and of the sequences and
gaps in the patient's associations.
I would suggest that the analyst along with this freely working attention needs a freely
roused emotional sensibility so as to follow the patient's emotional movements and
unconscious phantasies. Our basic assumption is that the analyst's unconscious
understands that of his patient. This rapport on the deep level comes to the surface in
the form of feelings which the analyst notices in response to his patient, in his 'countertransference'. This is the most dynamic way in which his patient's voice reaches him.
In the comparison of feelings roused in himself with his patient's associations and
behaviour, the analyst possesses a most valuable means of checking whether he has
understood or failed to understand his patient.
Since, however, violent emotions of any kind, of love or hate, helpfulness or anger,
impel towards action rather than towards contemplation and blur a person's capacity to
observe and weigh the evidence correctly, it follows that, if the analyst's emotional
response is intense, it will defeat its object.
Therefore the analyst's emotional sensitivity needs to be extensive rather than intensive,
differentiating and mobile.
There will be stretches in the analytic work, when the analyst who combines free
attention with free emotional responses does not register his feelings as a problem,
because they are in accord with the meaning he understands. But often the emotions
roused in him are much nearer to the heart of the matter than his reasoning, or, to put it
in other words, his unconscious perception of the patient's unconscious is more acute
and in advance of his conscious conception of the situation.
A recent experience comes to mind. It concerns a patient whom I had taken over from a
colleague. The patient was a man in the forties who had originally sought treatment
when his marriage broke down.
Among his symptoms promiscuity figured
prominently. In the third week of his analysis with me he told me, at the beginning of
the session, that he was going to marry a woman whom he had met only a short time
before.
It was obvious that his wish to get married at this juncture was determined by his
resistance against the analysis and his need to act out his transference conflicts. Within
a strongly ambivalent attitude the desire for an intimate relation with me had already
clearly appeared. I had thus many reasons for doubting the wisdom of his intention and
for suspecting his choice. But such an attempt to short-circuit analysis is not infrequent
at the beginning of, or at a critical point in, the treatment and usually does not represent
too great an obstacle to the work, so that catastrophic conditions need not arise. I was
therefore somewhat puzzled to find that I reacted with a sense of apprehension and






worry to the patient's remark. I felt that something more was involved in his situation,
something beyond the ordinary acting out, which, however, eluded me.
In his further associations which centred round his friend, the patient, describing her,
said she had had a 'rough passage'. This phrase again registered particularly and
increased my misgivings. It dawned on me that it was precisely because she had had a
rough passage that he was drawn to her. But still I felt that I did not see things clearly
enough. Presently he came to tell me his dream: he had acquired from abroad a very
good second-hand car which was damaged. He wished to repair it, but another person
in the dream objected for reasons of caution. The patient had, as he put it, 'to make him
confused' in order that he might go ahead with the repair of the car.
- 82 With the help of this dream I came to understand what before I had merely felt as a
sense of apprehension and worry. There was indeed more at stake than the mere actingout of transference conflicts.
When he gave me the particulars of the carvery good, second-hand, from abroadthe
patient spontaneously recognized that it represented myself. The other person in the
dream who tried to stop him and whom he confused, stood for that part of the patient's
ego which aimed at security and happiness and for the analysis as a protective object.
The dream showed that the patient wished me to be damaged (he insisted on my being
the refugee to whom applies the expression 'rough passage' which he had used for his
new friend). Out of guilt for his sadistic impulses he was compelled to make reparation,
but this reparation was of a masochistic nature, since it necessitated blotting out the
voice of reason and caution. This element of confusing the protective figure was in
itself double-barrelled, expressing both his sadistic and his masochistic impulses: in so
far as it aimed at annihilating the analysis, it represented the patient's sadistic tendencies
in the pattern of his infantile anal attacks on his mother; in so far as it stood for his
ruling out his desire for security and happiness, it expressed his self-destructive trends.
Reparation turned into a masochistic act again engenders hatred, and, far from solving
the conflict between destructiveness and guilt, leads to a vicious circle.
The patient's intention of marrying his new friend, the injured woman, was fed from
both sources, and the acting-out of his transference conflicts proved to be determined by
this specific and powerful sado-masochistic system.
Unconsciously I had grasped immediately the seriousness of the situation, hence the
sense of worry which I experienced. But my conscious understanding lagged behind, so
that I could decipher the patient's message and appeal for help only later in the hour,
when more material came up.
In giving the gist of an analytic session I hope to illustrate my contention that the
analyst's immediate emotional response to his patient is a significant pointer to the
patient's unconscious processes and guides him towards fuller understanding. It helps






the analyst to focus his attention on the most urgent elements in the patient's
associations and serves as a useful criterion for the selection of interpretations from
material which, as we know, is always overdetermined.
From the point of view I am stressing, the analyst's counter-transference is not only part
and parcel of the analytic relationship, but it is the patient's creation, it is a part of the
patient's personality. (I am possibly touching here on a point which Dr. Clifford Scott
would express in terms of his concept of the body-scheme, but to pursue this line would
lead me away from my theme.)
The approach to the counter-transference which I have presented is not without danger.
It does not represent a screen for the analyst's shortcomings. When the analyst in his
own analysis has worked through his infantile conflicts and anxieties (paranoid and
depressive), so that he can easily establish contact with his own unconscious, he will not
impute to his patient what belongs to himself. He will have achieved a dependable
equilibrium which enables him to carry the rles of the patient's id, ego, super-ego, and
external objects which the patient allots to him orin other wordsprojects on him,
when he dramatizes his conflicts in the analytic relationship. In the instance I have
given the analyst was predominantly in the rles of the patient's good mother to be
destroyed and rescued, and of the patient's reality-ego which tried to oppose his sadomasochistic impulses. In my view Freud's demand that the analyst must 'recognize and
master' his counter-transference does not lead to the conclusion that the countertransference is a disturbing factor and that the analyst should become unfeeling and
detached, but that he must use his emotional response as a key to the patient's
unconscious. This will protect him from entering as a co-actor on the scene which the
patient re-enacts in the analytic relationship and from exploiting it for his own needs.
At the same time he will find ample stimulus for taking himself to task again and again
and for continuing the analysis of his own problems. This, however, is his private
affair, and I do not consider it right for the analyst to communicate his feelings to his
patient. In my view such honesty is more in the nature of a confession and a burden to
the patient. In any case it leads away from the analysis. The emotions roused in the
analyst will be of value to his patient, if used as one more source of insight into the
patient's unconscious conflicts and defences; and when these are interpreted and worked
through, the
- 83 ensuing changes in the patient's ego include the strengthening of his reality sense so that
he sees his analyst as a human being, not a god or demon, and the 'human' relationship
in the analytic situation follows without the analyst's having recourse to extra-analytical
means.
Psycho-analytic technique came into being when Freud, abandoning hypnosis,
discovered resistance and repression. In my view the use of counter-transference as an
instrument of research can be recognized in his descriptions of the way by which he






arrived at his fundamental discoveries. When he tried to elucidate the hysterical
patient's forgotten memories, he felt that a force from the patient opposed his attempts
and that he had to overcome this resistance by his own psychic work. He concluded
that it was the same force which was responsible for the repression of the crucial
memories and for the formation of the hysterical symptom.
The unconscious process in hysterical amnesia can thus be defined by its twin facets, of
which one is turned outward and felt by the analyst as resistance, whilst the other works
intrapsychically as repression.
Whereas in the case of repression counter-transference is characterized by the sensation
of a quantity of energy, an opposing force, other defence mechanisms will rouse other
qualities in the analyst's response.
I believe that with more thorough investigation of counter-transference from the angle I
have attempted here, we may come to work out more fully the way in which the
character of the counter-transference corresponds to the nature of the patient's
unconscious impulses and defences operative at the actual time.

- 84 -






(1956) NORMAL COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE
DEVIATIONS. INT. J. PSYCHO-ANAL., 37:360 (IJP)

AND

SOME

OF

ITS

NORMAL COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE AND SOME OF ITS DEVIATIONS1

R. E. MONEY-KYRLE

Introductory
Counter-transference is an old psycho-analytic concept which has recently been
widened and enriched. We used to think of it mainly as a personal disturbance to be
analysed away in ourselves. We now also think of it as having its causes, and effects, in
the patient and, therefore, as an indication of something to be analysed in him (1).
I believe this more recently explored aspect of counter-transference can be used, in the
way described, for example, by Paula Heimann (2), to achieve an important technical
advance. But of course the discovery that counter-transference can be usefully
employed does not imply that it has ceased ever to be a serious impediment. And as
both aspects in fact exist, we may surmise that there may be a problem about their
similarities and differences which still deserves investigation. Perhaps this problem
may be put in the form of three related questions: What is 'normal' countertransference? How and under what conditions is it disturbed? And how can
disturbances be corrected and in the process perhaps used to further an analysis?
Normal counter-transference
As to the analyst's correct or normal attitude to the patient, there are a number of aspects
which have been mentioned both in papers and discussions. Freud spoke of a
'benevolent neutrality'. This I take to imply that the analyst is concerned for the welfare
of his patient, without becoming emotionally involved in his conflicts. It also implies, I
think, that the analyst, in virtue of his understanding of psychic determinism, has a
certain kind of tolerance which is the opposite of condemnation, and yet by no means
the same as indulgence or indifference.
Many analysts have stressed the element of scientific curiosity, and certainly we should
not get far without this sublimation. But, by itself, it seems a little too impersonal.
Concern for the patient's welfare comes, I think, from the fusion of two other basic
drives: the reparative, which counteracts the latent destructiveness in all of us, and the
parental. Of course, if too intense, they betray excessive guilt about inadequately
sublimated aggressiveness which can be the cause of very disturbing anxieties. But, in
some degree, both are surely normal. The reparative satisfactions of analysis are
obvious and often referred to. So, in some degree, the patient must stand for the






damaged objects of the analyst's own unconscious phantasy, which are still endangered
by aggression and still in need of care and reparation. The parental aspect has been
mentioned, in discussions, by Paula Heimann (3). No one would suggest that the
patient stands only for a child, and not sometimes for a sibling, or even for a parent.
But it is with the unconscious child in the patient that the analyst is most concerned; and
because this child so often treats the analyst as parent, the analyst's unconscious can
hardly fail to respond in some degree by regarding the patient as his child.
Now, to a parent, a child stands, at least in part, for an early aspect of the self. And this
seems to me important. For it is just because the analyst can recognize his early self,
which has already been analysed, in the patient, that he can analyse the patient (4). His
empathy and insight, as distinct from his theoretical knowledge, depend on this kind of
partial identification (5).
But identification can take two formsintrojective and projectivea distinction latent
in Freud's concept, the significance of which Melanie Klein has recently brought out
(6). We may therefore expect to find both forms in the analyst's partial identification
with his patient.
I will try to formulate what seems to be

1Read at the 19th International Psycho-Analytical Congress, Geneva, 2428 July, 1955.
- 360 happening when the analysis is going well. I believe there is a fairly rapid oscillation
between introjection and projection. As the patient speaks, the analyst will, as it were,
become introjectively identified with him, and having understood him inside, will
reproject him and interpret. But what I think the analyst is most aware of is the
projective phasethat is to say, the phase in which the patient is the representative of a
former immature or ill part of himself, including his damaged objects, which he can
now understand and therefore treat by interpretation, in the external world.
Meanwhile the patient is receiving effective interpretations, which help him to respond
with further associations that can be understood. As long as the analyst understands
them, this satisfactory relationshipwhich I will call the 'normal' onepersists. In
particular, the analyst's counter-transference feelings will be confined to that sense of
empathy with the patient on which his insight is based.
Periods of Non-Understanding
Everyone, the analyst no less than the patient, would be happy if the situation I have just
described, and called the 'normal' one, would persist throughout the whole course of an
analysis. Unfortunately, it is normal only in the sense of being an ideal. It depends for
its continuity on the analyst's continuous understanding. But he is not omniscient. In
particular, his understanding fails whenever the patient corresponds too closely with






some aspect of himself which he has not yet learnt to understand. Moreover some
patients are much less co-operative than others. There are patients with whom the best
of analysts find great difficulty in maintaining contactwith whom the 'normal'
relationship is the exception rather than the rule. And even with co-operative patients, it
is subject to fairly frequent breaks.
We recognize these breaks at once by our feeling that the material has become obscure,
and that we have somehow lost the thread. Now whatever has in fact been missed, the
fact of missing it creates a new situation which may be felt as a strain by the analyst as
well as by the patient. Of course some analystsfor example, those who most crave
the reassurance of continuous successfeel such strains more acutely then others. But,
apart from individual differences, there is a peculiarity in the very nature of the analytic
technique which must impose some strain on all of usespecially at moments when we
cannot help a patient who is in obvious distress. For, if my argument so far is right, we
all have some need to satisfy our parental and reparative drives to counteract the Death
Instinct; but we are much more restricted in the ways in which we can do so than a real
parent, an educationalist or any other kind of therapist. We are restricted to the giving
of interpretations (7) ; and our capacity to give them depends upon our continuing to
understand the patient. If this understanding fails, as fail from time to time it must, we
have no alternative therapy to fall back on. Here, then, is a situation peculiar to
analysis, when lack of understanding is liable to arouse conscious or unconscious
anxiety, and anxiety still further to diminish understanding. It is to the onset of this
kind of vicious spiral that I am inclined to attribute every deviation in normal countertransference feeling.
If the analyst is in fact disturbed, it is also likely that the patient has unconsciously
contributed to this result, and is in turn disturbed by it. So we have three factors to
consider: first, the analyst's emotional disturbance, for he may have to deal with this
silently in himself before he can disengage himself sufficiently to understand the other
two; then the patient's part in bringing it about; and finally its effect on him. Of course,
all three factors may be sorted out in a matter of seconds, and then indeed the countertransference is functioning as a delicate receiving apparatus. But I will discuss the first
stage first, as if it were a lengthy processas it sometimes is.
The role of the analyst's superego
The extent to which an analyst is emotionally disturbed by periods of nonunderstanding will probably depend, in the first instance, on another factor: the severity
of his own superego. For analysis is also a form of work required of us by this inner
figurewhich, incidentally, a demanding patient may sometimes come to represent. If
our superego is predominantly friendly and helpful, we can tolerate our own limitations
without undue distress, and, being undisturbed, will be the more likely soon to regain
contact with the patient. But if it is severe, we may become conscious of a sense of






failure as the expression of an unconscious persecutory or depressive guilt. Or, as a
defence against such feelings, we may blame the patient.
The choice of one or other of these alternatives seems to me to determine something
else as well. For
- 361 when that interplay between introjection and projection, which characterizes the
analytic process, breaks down, the analyst may tend to get stuck in one or other of these
two positions; and what he does with his guilt may determine the position he gets stuck
in. If he accepts the guilt, he is likely to get stuck with an introjected patient. If he
projects it, the patient remains an incomprehensible figure in the external world.
Examples of prolonged introjection and projection
An example of the first, that is, the introjective, alternative may be seen when the
analyst gets unduly worried, both on his own and his patient's behalf, about a session
that has gone badly. He may feel as if he had regained some of his own old troubles
and become almost physically burdened with his patient's as well. Only when he
separates the two can he see what he has missed and get the patient out of him again.
Often, it is something towards the end of a session, or of a week, which he feels he has
missed, and then he has all the patient's supposed frustration in himself. This may look
like a self-punishment for having unconsciously intended to hurt the patient. But we
may wonder whether the patient has not contributed to the analyst's distresswhether
the leaving of his analyst with an unsolved problem about himself is not his way of
projecting himself into the analyst both to punish him for, and to avoid, the threatened
separation.
In other words, there may be a symbiosis between the analyst's tendency to prolong the
introjection of a patient whom he cannot understand or help and the patient's tendency
to project parts of himself, in the way described by Melanie Klein, into the analyst who
is not helping him. (This may be particularly disturbing if what the patient is most
anxious to get rid of is his own destructiveness.)
In such cases the ultimate cause of the analyst's slowness in understanding and
reprojecting the patient may be that the patient has come to stand for something which
he has not yet learnt to understand quickly in himself. If he still fails to do so, and
cannot tolerate the sense of being burdened with the patient as an irreparable or
persecuting figure inside him, he is likely to resort to a defensive kind of reprojection
which shuts out the patient and creates a further bar to understanding.
If so, a new complication may arise if the analyst, in projecting the patient, projects
aspects of himself as well. Then he will have the chance to explore within himself the
workings of those mechanisms of projective identification which, under the influence of
Melanie Klein, Rosenfeld and others have so fruitfully explored in schizophrenic






patients (8). Nor need we be surprised at this, for the discovery of pathological
mechanisms in mental illness is usually followed by the recognition of their less
obvious presence in normal people too. A 'slowmotion' example of the kind of process I
have in mind may be seen in another fairly common weekend experience. For a little
time after he has finished his week's work, the analyst may be consciously preoccupied
with some unsolved problem of his patients. Then he forgets them; but the period of
conscious concern is followed by a period of listlessness in which he is depleted of the
private interests that usually occupy his leisure. I suggest this is because, in phantasy,
he has projected parts of himself together with his patients and must wait, as it were, till
these return to him.
When this partial loss of self occurs within a session, it is often experienced as the loss
of intellectual potency; the analyst feels stupid. The patient may well have contributed
to this result. Perhaps, frustrated by not getting an immediate interpretation, he has
unconsciously wished to castrate his analyst, and by treating him as if he were, has
helped to make him feel castrated (9).
A complicated example taken from my own experience would seem to illustrate the
simultaneous operation of all these processes. For while the dominant theme was my
introjection of a patient who wished to project his illness into me, I also experienced a
sense of being robbed of my wits by him.
A neurotic patient, in whom paranoid and schizoid mechanisms were prominent, arrived
for a session in considerable anxiety because he had not been able to work in his office.
He had also felt vague on the way as if he might get lost or run over; and he despised
himself for being useless. Remembering a similar occasion, on which he had felt
depersonalized over a week-end and dreamed that he had left his 'radar' set in a shop
and would be unable to get it before Monday, I thought he had, in phantasy, left parts of
his 'good self' in me. But I was not very sure of this, or of other interpretations I began
to give. And he, for his part, soon began to reject them all with a mounting degree of
anger; and, at the same time, abused me for
- 362 not helping. By the end of the session he was no longer depersonalized, but very angry
and contemptuous instead. It was I who felt useless and bemused.
When I eventually recognized my state at the end as so similar to that he had described
as his at the beginning, I could almost feel the relief of a re-projection. By then the
session was over. But he was in the same mood at the beginning of the next onestill
very angry and contemptuous. I then told him I thought he felt he had reduced me to
the state of useless vagueness he himself had been in; and that he felt he had done this
by having me 'on the mat', asking questions and rejecting the answers, in the way his
legal father did. His response was striking. For the first time in two days, he became






quiet and thoughtful. He then said this explained why he had been so angry with me
yesterday: he had felt that all my interpretations referred to my illness and not to his.
I suggest that, as in a slow motion picture, we can here see several distinct processes
which, in an ideal or 'normal' analytic period, should occur extremely quickly. I think I
began, as it were, to take my patient in, to identify introjectively with him, as soon as he
lay down and spoke about his very acute distress. But I could not at once recognize it as
corresponding with anything already understood in myself; and, for this reason, I was
slow to get it out of me in the process of explaining, and so relieving it in him. He, for
his part, felt frustrated at not getting effective interpretations, and reacted by projecting
his sense of mental impotence into me, at the same time behaving as if he had taken
from me what he felt he had lost, his father's clear, but aggressive, intellect, with which
he attacked his impotent self in me. By this time, of course, it was useless to try to pick
up the thread where I had first dropped it. A new situation had arisen which had
affected us both. And before my patient's part in bringing it about could be interpreted,
I had to do a silent piece of self-analysis involving the discrimination of two things
which can be felt as very similar: my own sense of incompetence at having lost the
thread, and my patient's contempt for his impotent self, which he felt to be in me.
Having made this interpretation to myself, I was eventually able to pass the second half
of it on to my patient, and, by so doing, restored the normal analytic situation.
According to Bion (10), the capacity to make this kind of discrimination, and much
more quickly than in the example, is an important part of the capacity to use one's
counter-transference in the interests of analysis.
Positive and negative counter-transference
Coming now to counter-transference in the narrow sense of an excess of positive or
negative feeling, this too is often an indirect result of the frustrations arising when a
distressed patient is not understood, and no effective interpretations can be given. For
the analyst whose reparative impulse is thwarted of its analytically normal outlet may be
unconsciously inclined either to offer some form of love instead, or to become hostile to
his patient. Meanwhile, the patient may be facilitating the process by trying to provoke
one or other of these affects in his analyst, who is the more likely to respond to his
patient's mood just because he has lost his empathy with it.
Now however scrupulously we may suppress an excess of positive or negative feeling
of this kind, the patient is likely to sense it unconsciously. Then a new situation arises
in which his response to our mood may itself have to be interpreted.
If, for example, the counter-transference is too positive, the patient may respond to our
increased emotional concern by complaining that we have no emotional concern. We
do not contradict him as he may wish. But it may be appropriate to tell him that he
believes we are attracted to him and has to deny it in order to avoid the responsibility
for a seduction. For an important early pattern may be involved. As a child, he may






have been unconsciously aware that his caresses embarrassed one of his parents, for
example, his mother, because she was afraid of being aroused by them; and the sense of
being rebuffed may have rankled all his life, because it was needed to counteract his
guilt for trying to seduce her. If so, the interpretation of the repetition of this pattern in
the transference may enable the patient to reassess, not only his analyst's, but his real
parent's attitude to him.
But if it goes unnoticed, and its effects unobserved, the unconscious offering of love in
lieu of effective interpretations may disturb the analysis in many ways. For instance,
the analyst may foster the split, directly in his own mind and indirectly in his patient's,
between himself as a good parent and the real parents as bad ones. Then the patient
may never become aware of his guilt towards thema guilt which, paradoxically
enough, is likely to be all the
- 363 greater if they were really bad; for it is in proportion to his own ambivalence. If this
guilt is not recovered in analysis, the patient cannot work through that early stage
described by Melanie Klein as the depressive position, in which the developing infant
begins to become aware of, and miserable about, the conflict between his hatred and his
love.
As to the negative attitudes to a patient which may also result from a temporary failure
to understand him, these would seem especially to arise when the patient becomes a
persecution because he is felt to be incurable. Then, as before, the analyst's triple task is
first to become aware of this defensive mechanism in himself, then of his patient's part
in bringing it about, and lastly of its effect on him.
To take the last point first: The sort of paranoid patient I mentioned earlier, who hated
me for years and seemed to make no noticeable progress, can easily come to stand for
one's own bad and persecutory objects, which one would like to get rid of. Such
feelings betray themselves in one's sigh of relief after the last session of the week, or
before a holiday. One's first impulse may be to suppress such hostile feelings; but if one
does not allow oneself to become aware of them, one may miss their influence on the
patient's unconscious. For instance, I came to feel that the occasions on which this
patient repudiated me with more than ordinary violence, followed rather than preceded,
moments when I would really have been glad to see the last of him. And then my
interpretation that it was he who felt rebuffed met with more success.
I also noticed more clearly that the times when I was aware of disliking him followed
moments in which I had despaired of helping him. And I began to wonder whether he,
on his side, was not trying to make me despair and, if so, what his motives were.
Several seemed to be involved, of which perhaps the most important was that, in his
phantasy, getting well was equated with the renunciation of an unacknowledged
homosexual component in himself. He unconsciously wished to prove to me that this






could not be done. Meanwhile, he attacked me consciously for not curing him, that is,
for not removing the impulse; and unconsciously for not satisfying it for him.
Conclusion
If what I have said so far touches only the fringe of an immensely complicated subject,
it at least suggests the possibility of approximate answers to the questions I began with:
What is normal counter-transference? How and under what conditions is it disturbed?
And how can disturbances be corrected and in the process perhaps used to further an
analysis?
The analyst's motive is a blend of curiosity with parental and reparative drives. His
equipment consists both of his theoretical knowledge about the unconscious, and of his
personal acquaintance with its manifestations which he has gained in his own analysis.
But it is with his use of the second that we are here concerned; that is, with his insight,
for this consists in his ability, by means of a partial identification with his patient, to
apply his acquaintance with his own unconscious to the interpretation of his patient's
behaviour. When all is going well, this identification seems to oscillate between its
introjective and projective forms. The analyst, as it were, absorbs the patient's state of
mind through the medium of the associations he hears and the postures he observes,
recognizes it as expressing some pattern in his own unconscious world of phantasy, and
reprojects the patient in the act of formulating his interpretation. In this phase he may
get that sense of helpfully understanding his patient from within which satisfies both his
curiosity and his reparative drives. To some degree, his interest is also a parental one;
for, to the parent, the child is his early self, and it is with the same child in the patient
that the analyst is most concerned. His sense of being in touch with it, his empathy,
comprises his 'normal' counter-transference feeling.
What keeps the process going is the analyst's repeated acts of recognition, in the
introjective phase, that such and such a pattern of absorbed emotion expresses such and
such a phantasy in his own unconscious. And what causes a break in this relationship is
a failure in this recognition.
The cause of a failure may be something still feared, because not yet fully understood,
within the analyst to which the patient has come too close. But the result need be no
more than a retardation in the analytic process, which enables us the better to observe its
separate phases. This happens particularly when it is the first or introjective phase
which is slowed down. The analyst then feels burdened with the patient and with some
of his old immature self as well. He has to do more slowly, what at other times he does
at once; become conscious of the phantasies within him, recognize their
- 364 source, separate the patient's from his own, and so objectify him again.
But the analyst may also have to deal with two other factors, which are much less in
evidence when the process is going quickly. These are the patient's contributionin






particular his use of projective identificationto the analyst's disturbed emotions, and
the effect which these in turn may be having on the patient.
It may be, however, that the analyst does not succeed in sorting all this out within
himself before he reprojects the patient as something not understood, or foreign, in the
external world. Then, since his reparative impulses can find no outlet in effective
interpretations, he may be tempted to fall back on some form of reassurance instead.
Or, if he despairs of his reparative powers, he may defend himself against depression by
feeling angry with his patient. In either case, his intuition has temporarily gone so that
any interpretations he makes can be based only on his knowledge of theory, which by
itself is likely to be a sterile substitute for a fruitful combination of the two.
If we were omniscient analysts, the only counter-transference we should experience
would be that belonging to those intuitive periods when all is going well. In fact, the
less satisfactory states I have tried to describe, in which our feelings are at least in some
degree disturbed, probably take up a lot more analytic time than we readily remember or
admit. Yet it is precisely in them, I think, that the analyst, by silently analysing his own
reactions, can increase his insight, decrease his difficulties, and learn more about his
patient.
REFERENCES
The use of counter-transference as an 'instrument of research' has been especially
studied by Paula Heimann('On Counter-Transference' Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 1950 31 )
That is to say, she has stressed its causes in the patient, while Margaret Little('CounterTransference and the Patient's Response to it' Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 1951 32 ) has stressed
its effects on him. This, too, is clearly an important aspect. But, in interpreting the
patient's response to our counter-transference, opinions differ about whether, as she
thinks, we should occasionally be prepared to admit to him what our countertransference wasinstead of confining ourselves to interpreting what is in his mind,
namely, his beliefs about our attitude.
HEIMANN, PAULA The use of counter-transference as an 'instrument of research' has
been especially studied by Paula Heimann('On Counter-Transference' Int. J. PsychoAnal. 1950 31 ) That is to say, she has stressed its causes in the patient, while Margaret
Little('Counter-Transference and the Patient's Response to it' Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 1951
32 ) has stressed its effects on him. This, too, is clearly an important aspect. But, in
interpreting the patient's response to our counter-transference, opinions differ about
whether, as she thinks, we should occasionally be prepared to admit to him what our
counter-transference wasinstead of confining ourselves to interpreting what is in his
mind, namely, his beliefs about our attitude.
The sublimation of curiosity and of parental impulses have been stressed respectively
by Clifford Scott and Paula Heimann in scientific discussions in the British PsychoAnalytical Society. But I have not found specific references to these points in any of






their published papers. In 'Problems of the Training Analysis'(Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 1954
35 ) however, Paula Heimann does implicitly refer to the dangers of an excess of
parental sublimation.
Conversely, by discovering new patterns in a patient, the analyst can make 'postgraduate' progress in his own analysis.
Annie Reich speaks of a 'short-lived identification'('On Counter-Transference' Int. J.
Psycho-Anal. 1951 32 ) and Paula Heimann of identification in both introjective and
projective forms in her 'Problems of the Training Analysis' quoted above.
KLEIN, MELANIE 'Notes on some Schizoid Mechanisms' Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 1946 27
and in Developments in Psycho-Analysis 1952 I think the distinction between
introjective and projective identification is implicit, though not very clearly brought out,
in Freud'sGroup Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
The extent to which we are in fact restricted to pure interpretations depends, in some
degree, upon our school. We are all agreed that our main rle is to give interpretations.
No one denies that we also arrange a certain framework within which to give them: we
provide the physical comfort of a couch; and we preserve a certain courtesy of manner
with minor variations according to the requirements of different patients, some wishing
to shake hands before or after every session, others not, and so on. But opinions differ
about whether the framework, once established, should be deliberately manipulated.
Thus Winnicott, if I understand him rightly, has argued that some psychotic patients can
only form a relation to an ideal object which they have never had, and that the analyst
may have to play this rle before analysis proper can be started; in other words, that it is
not alone sufficient to interpret the patient's efforts to force this rle on him.
KLEIN, MELANIE 'Notes on some Schizoid Mechanisms' Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 1946 27
and in Developments in Psycho-Analysis 1952 I think the distinction between
introjective and projective identification is implicit, though not very clearly brought out,
in Freud'sGroup Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego ROSENFELD, H.
'Transference Phenomena and Transference Analysis in an Acute Catatonic
Schizophrenic Patient' Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 1952 33
If so, the patient is also likely to introject him in this condition and then feel in more
desperate need of external help than ever. At such moments, the analyst may become
disagreeably aware that the patient is still more urgently demanding that which he is
still less able to giveconsciously, a good interpretation, unconsciously a breast or
penis which now neither feel they have.
- 365 BION, W. R. 'Language and the Schizophrenic.' Ch. 9 in New Directions in PsychoAnalysis 1955 Edited by Melanie Klein, Paula Heimann, and R. E. Money-Kyrle. How
exactly a patient does succeed in imposing a phantasy and its corresponding affect upon
his analyst in order to deny it in himself is a most interesting problem. I do not think we






need assume some form of extrasensory communication; but the communication can be
of a pre-verbal and archaic kindsimilar perhaps to that used by gregarious animals in
which the posture or call of a single member will arouse a corresponding affect in the
rest. In the analytic situation, a peculiarity of communications of this kind is that, at first
sight, they do not seem as if they had been made by the patient at all. The analyst
experiences the affect as being his own response to something. The effort involved is in
differentiating the patient's contribution from his own.

- 366 -






RAPPAPORT, E. (1959) THE FIRST DREAM
TRANSFERENCE. INT. J. PSYCHO-ANAL., 40:240 (IJP)

IN

AN

EROTIZED

THE FIRST DREAM IN AN EROTIZED TRANSFERENCE1

ERNEST A. RAPPAPORT, M.D.

The particular importance of the first dream in analysis has been recognized by Stekel,
who pointed out that 'the first dream already contains the important secret, around
which the neurosis is crystallized, revealed in symbolic language. It is often impossible
for us to understand this first dream, and only in the course of the analysis will it
become clear to us what the analysand wanted to say with the first dream' (11, p. 119).
Stekel quoted Missriegler, who suggested that the entire life story of a patient, as a rule,
is depicted in the first dream, if only we could understand it (11, p. 342). Fortunately
this might not always be so difficult, because at the initial stage of the analysis the
patient is still unsophisticated and does not employ any skill in disguising and distorting
his dream. French was able to evaluate the integrative capacity of the ego by studying
the manifest content of the first series of dreams in an analysis (3). Recently Leon J.
Saul emphasized that the manifest dream alone can be an accurate prognostic sign in the
beginning phase of treatment (10, p. 125).
Lionel Blitzsten has drawn attention to one specific prognostic factor which he learned
from his own personal observation. 'If the analyst appears without disguise as himself
already in the first dream, the prognosis is unfavourable, or this is going to be a very
difficult analysis. This type of dream occurring so early in the analysis indicates that
the patient in his unconscious is unable to differentiate between the analyst and a
significant person of the past, or that the analyst in his appearance and behaviour really
resembles such a person too closely. At any rate the analysis is going to be erotized
right from the start.'
By erotization, Blitzsten means an excess of the erotic component in the transference,
which however does not indicate an excess in the capacity to love, but rather a
deficiency in it as contrasted with an excessive demand to be loved. The word 'love', of
course, should be taken cum grano salis, considering that these patients have no
experience in regard to the mature, highly socialized, and ephemeral concept of love;
therefore erotization is a much more appropriate term. I continue to quote Blitzsten: 'In
a transference situation the analyst is seen as if he were the parent, while in erotization
of the transference he is the parent. In a transference dream of a later stage of the
analysis the analyst appears only as a parent surrogate. This gives evidence that
something is taking place between the patient and the analyst which is similar to the
archaic situation, but is not the archaic situation itself. If the analyst, however, is






portrayed as his identical self immediately in the first dream, it has to be worked
through quite early or one has to send the patient to another analyst. This can occur
without participation of the therapist, or it may occur with any therapist who resembles
the significant person in the patient's life experience and therefore imposes on him all
the qualities of this individual.'2
In a previous paper (9) I have mentioned the different terms by which various authors
have designated the same bizarre transference situation. It is probably most vividly
characterized by a patient described by Grete Bibring, who 'demanded to be taken on
her lap, carried about and fed, and insisted on addressing her with the familiar Du' (2).
Nunberg reported on a woman patient who literally expected to find her father in him.
He came to the conclusion that such behaviour did not reflect the phenomenon that we
call transference but merely readiness for transference (6). However, her refusal of
reality testing actually contradicted a readiness for transference, at least in the usual

(Received 23 April, 1958)

1Presented at the First Latin-American Psychoanalytic Congress in Buenos Aires on 17
August, 1956, and at the Joint Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association and
West Coast Psychoanalytic Societies, 24 November, 1957.
2Personal communication.
- 240 sense. Therefore I would suggest the term 'ready-made transference', which would
emphasize the resistance to alterations. Oscar Pfister wrote in 1918: 'It is quite in order
that the subject may wish to be loved by the analyst, but he should gain this love by
valuable effort, whereby he may grow in his love (my italics). The transference
breaks the path to a healthy esteem of the analyst, a highly valuable affection' (8). The
implication is that, for the sake of winning the analyst's love, the patient learns to love
himself and to give up his resistance against getting well. In 1939, Karen Horney
declared that the most valuable of Freud's discoveries was his finding that 'one can
utilize for therapy the patient's emotional reactions to the analyst and to the analytical
situation' (5, p. 154). L. S. Penrose pointed out in 1947 that Freud's greatest
contribution was the discovery that the patient obeys because he is in love with the
doctor, and that it is unfortunate that the discipline was named psycho-analysis and not
transference analysis (7). These authors agree that the only means by which the analyst
can induce the patient to give up his illness is the transference. However, in an erotized
transference, which the patient brings along from the outside ready-made, he does not
fall in love with the analyst but instead expects the analyst to fall in love with him and
to change for the patient's sake. The 'as if' situation of transference proper is unbearable
to an ambulatory schizophrenic who has been too much frustrated by an as-if mother.
He will insist that the analyst be his parent. He will refuse to exert any effort, but at the






same time will be convinced that the analyst owes it to him to love him without
expecting anything, even respect, in return. Michael Balint was referring to this bizarre
transference situation when he wrote of the analyst as being taken for granted and
treated as a mere object, a thing, which deserves no consideration. He defined this as a
pregenital or primary transference, which he put in contradistinction to a genital
transference, in which the patient makes an effort to find favour in the analyst's eyes and
engages in a 'work of conquest' of the analyst (1, p. 355).
Maxwell Gitelson stressed the importance which Blitzsten attributed to the discovery of
the analyst's own participation in the patient's production of an erotized transference.
'An unmanageable intense transference neurosis is likely to be heralded in the patient's
first dreams by the appearance in them of the analyst as himself. Such dreams are
indicative of the actual recurrence in the analytic situation of an emotional situation
which is too nearly that which characterized an original relationship, and the analyst
needs to be certain that it is not his own attitude towards the patient which is producing
the reaction.' Gitelson then gave as an example the first dream of a young woman who
had been in analysis with a student and for weeks prior to this dream had been silent so
that the analysis was in an impasse. As she later confessed, she was immersed in silent
sexual preoccupations with the analyst. When she saw an announcement in the
newspaper of a public lecture which he was going to give, she reacted to it with the
following dream: 'She was in bed with the analyst; she took his hands and placed them
on her breasts against his will; she had a strong sexual reaction.' In association to the
dream she told the analyst how proud she was of him and that she used to write her
father's speeches for him because of his difficulties with a new language. The analyst's
contribution to her erotization of the transference was made evident by his decision to
analyse this particular patient without the help (interference) of a supervisor, and by his
corresponding dream, in which he was in bed with the patient, put his hand on her
pubis, and felt that he was looking for something but was aware only of hair and
moisture (4).
A colleague told me about a student who reported in a case conference the first dream of
his patient in which he, the analyst, appeared as himself. When he began to discuss the
patient in front of the class, it was obvious to everyone except himself that he actually
represented the mother to this patient. The patient's mother was so untidy that she kept
the house littered with Kotex and old newspapers and in an abominable mess. The
student analyst while reporting the case littered the desk with his notes which spilled
over on to the floor, and it was known that he also kept his office in disorder. The effect
of his behaviour was that he had made the patient's transference too real. However, the
analyst need not resemble the parent so closely in his attitude and appearance to elicit
such a first dream. The patient might react to some counter-transference phenomena
which he could sense in the analyst, or his concept of the analyst might have nothing to
do with the analyst's actual person but be plain wish-fulfilment and wholly remote from
reality.






The following clinical instance was related to me by a woman analyst. A young man
had made an appointment with her by phone for his first analytic hour. In this hour he
reported that in
- 241 the night following the telephone conversation he had dreamt that he was in her office
and lying on the couch while she was hovering over him in the air. He had seen her
occasionally at meetings and he knew what she looked like when he heard her voice on
the phone, but it was entirely out of the question that she could have contributed
anything to this dream either in reality or by counter-transference. Nevertheless, in the
course of his subsequent analysis he persisted in acting in response to this dream
fantasy, the same which he entertained about his mother who had died some years ago.
In his adolescence he and his mother acted out a romantic relationship between them, of
which his mother was less conscious than he. The woman analyst was unable to break
through this fantasy about her or even to get it into the open. The patient could be
helped to some extent, but he could not be analysed by her and had to be referred to
another analyst. The possibility of analysing such a dream is enhanced if it occurs a few
hours later in the analysis, as is illustrated by the next case:
A 26-year old social worker, a rather obese fellow, sought analytic treatment because of
his insecurity with people and at his job, which he was afraid of losing. When he
walked into my office and while he was sitting he always kept his head bent forward,
which indicated partly submission and partly readiness to butt with his head like a bull.
He attempted to overwhelm me with a flood of verbalizations, but these ebbed
immediately after the eighth hour when he had accepted my hint to lie on the couch. He
became increasingly aware of my silence, and that if he did not face me he could no
longer fancy that he controlled me. He voiced his chagrin in such statements as: 'There
should be more social graces between you and me. I am not used to speaking if you
don't talk back. Maybe I am tired. You ushered me out here last hour while I combed
my hair.' When I repeated that his time was up and another patient waiting, he replied
angrily: 'It could have been handled more delicately by you. Maybe I wanted to stay
longer. I feel rejected. I no longer have the enthusiasm about analysis as before.
Maybe we reject one another.' In the twelfth hour he reported the first dream:
'I had a dream and you were in it. You were swinging on some contraption and other
people were also on it. Your head was down while the others had their heads up. I was
watching you and laughing, but I did not want you to see me and turned my head away,
though I had the feeling you were looking at me. Then you got up and passed by me.
Then I dreamt that a boat was going away and a ladder was hanging down from the rear
of the boat. A fellow was hanging on the ladder. I could not quite reach the ladder, but
the fellow would not help me on to the ladder though I had a heavy bag. This was odd
of him, and then the fellow was my father and I awakened.'






His associations were that he felt rejected because I had passed by him after I had got up
from the contraption, and because the odd fellow who was his father did not help him
on the ladder to the boat. When he had come to his last hour he had walked past the
building where my office is located and had to turn round. An 'odd fellow' made him
think of a homosexual, and the swing reminded him of a penis and of obscene phallic
pictures he had seen at Pompeii where he had been during his military service. While
the average dreams in the initial stage of analysis should not be interpreted, and
certainly not the first dream, yet a transference dream, and especially a premature
transference dream, should not be ignored. Blitzsten postulated that an erotized
transference must be worked through quite early or the patient must be sent to another
analyst. Therefore I confronted the patient with the manifest dream thoughts, his wish
to make a carnival out of the analysis by putting me on a swing with my head down and
laughing at me, and his anger that the odd fellow, though his father, did not help him on
to the ladder so that he missed the boat. I told him that his desire was that I should not
work, but play with him, and I asked him to look at me and ascertain that I was not his
father.
The patient was employed by a private agency for the treatment of alcoholics, and was
engaged in non-directive therapy. Following a change in the administration, he had
been told that if he wanted to keep his job he would have to enter graduate school for a
master's degree. He expected me, instead of analysing him, to give him a course in
psychotherapy and to help him with his assignments from the school of social work,
hence his anger in the dream because I did not help him on to the boat though he had
such a heavy bag. This was a reference to his briefcase full of case histories which he
brought along to each hour hoping that I would discuss these case histories with him.
I could discover only one reaction to my own unconscious feelings in the manifest
content of the dream. By watching me in a ridiculous situation and laughing at me he
reversed something he sensed in me, namely, that I felt amused by his navet. It
enhanced his disappointment that I still treated him as an adult and patient and not as a
child and pupil. The latent dream thoughts could be understood only by the analysis of
a series of dreams, his associations and behaviour in the analysis. He believed that
when he was masturbating his father would climb up a ladder and look through the
transom to watch him. In contrast he used to watch enviously at the dinner table when
his father got the bigger piece of meat. This was, of course, a screen memory for
- 242 looking enviously at the father's bigger penis. The analyst swinging on the contraption
with his head down while the others had their heads up was a primal scene memory, and
his laughing was a betrayal of his sexual excitement and anxiety. As for the others with
their heads up, this was a fantasy that his mother and he were on top of the father. His
envy of his father's bigger penis was reinforced by an identification with his mother and
her penis envy. Wanting to be let in on it, originally the primal scene, and at the time of






the dream the psycho-analytic 'racket', recurred as the motif in another dream pair ten
hours later.
Two fellows were sitting on the steps of the porch twisting a rope and he came along
asking: "What are the chances of getting in on the deal?" Then his mother was crazy
and supposed to be taken away for psychological tests, but his father protested against it
and fought the men who wanted to have her committed.
Of course, the crazy mother was himself, and he wanted me to protest that he needed
psychiatric treatment, but to let him in on the ropes without any effort on his part. His
mother was the dominant person in the house, while 'his father took the back seat', just
as I, sitting behind him, had taken the back seat. Though a stupid, rambling woman, she
vaunted her supposedly higher education over the father, whom she depreciated because
of his foreign accent and whom she called crazy and a bum. She had told the patient
that psychiatrists also are crazy and that one day she will call me up and bawl me out.
Repeatedly he expressed his anger about being treated as a patient and said that he was
ashamed to come to his analytic sessions. When he was late at work because of a
morning hour, he apologized for having overslept rather than admit that he had seen his
analyst. He took off his jacket regularly before lying on the couch so that it would not
be wrinkled and people would not recognize that he was in analysis.
When his mother had refused to share the bed with his father she had sent him to share
that of the patient, who thus took the mother's place. Then the father was lying behind
him in bed and in the morning he could feel the father's erected penis touching his
buttocks. The analyst, taking the back seat behind him and speaking with a foreign
accent, appeared to him not just as if he were the father but as the father in person.
Therefore he reported persistent tics and twitches of his buttocks during the hours from
the delusion that he could feel the father's erected penis behind him. In that sense the
ladder in the first dream hanging from the rear of the boat was also the father's penis
which he could not quite reach but wanted to grasp and to incorporate. The father or
analyst was the power behind the throne. Therefore he wanted to keep me anonymous.
He reproached me because on one occasion I ate a sandwich during his hour and did not
share it with him. He asked me whether he could borrow my air-conditioning unit
while I was on vacation or if he could borrow my books or get a file cabinet like mine.
He wanted to share the office with me as a partner, but it seemed funny to him to call
me doctor. He experienced the transference, as Thomas Szasz wrote, only in terms of
the pleasure of the child; the analyst to him was an ideal parent, masochistic and selfsacrificing (10). In a dream I sat at the foot of the couch and he at the head, and I asked
him not to call me doctor. In another dream he wanted to stop the analysis, but I begged
him not to stop it and invited him to sit on the couch with me to play pinochle, a thin
disguise for playing with our penises, and then he condescended to stay in analysis. His
mother had often threatened to get a divorce and, when he was a child, had told him that
he would become her divorce lawyer, but she had always condescended in the end to






stay with his father. The patient must then have witnessed the sex play between the
parents following the reconciliation. He was now less interested in becoming mother's
divorce lawyer, but rather the mother herself, and wanted me to play the corresponding
role of the father.
I did not refer this patient to another analyst because I could not find any evidence that
he would have developed a different type of transference with another analyst. Blitzsten
noted that an erotized transference can also occur without participation of the analyst.
For this patient, being alone in the same room with an analyst was in itself enough
encouragement to erotize the analysis regardless of the analyst's sex. By sitting behind
him I reminded him of the father who used to lie in bed behind him, but I did not want
to change the position, because he would have interpreted it as giving in to his wishes
for superiority and control. It was necessary for him to learn to tolerate being left to
himself. He was ready to accept as his parent anyone whom he considered strong
enough to feed on, and this immediately made that person identical with the parent, who
in his fantasies was bisexual. He had proof that his landlady saw in him her own son,
because she cooked chicken for him on Friday and she had known his grandmother. He
had noticed that the man who was his boss had 'identified with him' because his boss
had no formal training and neither at that time had he. His boss was an ex-alcoholic,
and the patient had got himself drunk in the Services before he was shipped overseas;
thus, he also was an ex-alcoholic. His attitude was the same in regard to his cello
teacher and to his supervisor.
To my surprise the patient could be analysed, and he profited from the treatment. He
held two jobs, one to support himself and another to finance
- 243 the analysis. He overcame his learning inhibition, finished his undergraduate training,
and was admitted to graduate school. To prevent an interminable analysis I had set a
date for termination. In one of his last dreams I was the commanding officer and had
sent him on patrol to the front line. He returned and asked how he could find the way; I
told him by the North Star and gave him a pocket watch. Though I had shown him the
way and given him the analyst's watch, as a confirmation present, so to speak, he still
had to replace the lost parent, and found a new one in the disguise of a wife. Against
my advice, he married a schizoid woman, who was still in analysis herself, intellectually
superior to him and seven years his senior. She supported him during his full-time
school work so that he could acquire a master's degree and promising employment. I
still represent the ideal parent, whom he occasionally consults, every time expressing
the desire for more analysis in the future.
The analysability and the obvious though limited improvement of this case could also
have been foreseen by a careful evaluation of certain elements in the first dream which
indicated favourable signs in an otherwise poor prognosis. The dream was reported in
the twelfth hour, when the analysis had already made some headway, though with a






most insidious resistance. It was a dream pair, in which the analyst appeared in the first
dream and the father in the second; the analyst became the father successively and not
simultaneously. The dream pair could be analysed in contrast to other first dreams in
which the analyst appeared as himself, and which could not be analysed. The analyst
was seen on a contraption with his head down, while others had their heads up and the
patient was laughing. Certainly the latent dream wish was a reversal of the analytic
situation with the analyst lying on the couch and the patient sitting up and laughing, but
it could have been depicted by an image not as vague as a contraption. In his
associations the analyst was on a swing with his head down, and therefore was not seen
as his actual self in a realistic situation, but in an impossible one; hence the dream could
be interpreted. In the second dream a fellow was hanging on a ladder attached to the
rear of a boat. The boat was leaving, but the odd fellow did not help the patient, who
could not reach the ladder. Undoubtedly the latent dream thought was the fear of
missing the boat. During his military service he had some homosexual experiences with
Italian boys and the fear of missing the boat had to do with the awareness of his sexual
inadequacy with women. At the time of the dream he was afraid of losing his job
because of inadequate schooling, and that his boss, who also had no formal training and
therefore was hanging on the ladder himself, would not help him on to the ladder which
he could not quite reach. Furthermore, the boat was also the Institute for
Psychoanalysis, from which he had been referred to me. He had fantasies that he could
get on the boat if I would only help him on to the ladder and tutor him in
psychoanalysis. He must have been aware that I was a candidate in training at that time
and therefore not yet on the boat myself, but hanging on to the ladder. However, he
expressed these thoughts only under the disguise of symbolism, never openly. The
same applies to the only resemblance to his father which he could detect in me, my
foreign accent. He mentioned on several occasions that his father had a foreign accent
for which the mother depreciated him, but I had to remind him that I too had a foreign
accent.
The dream work of symbolic concealment was omitted in the first dream of the patient
of another student of the Institute, and consequently the prognosis was considerably less
favourable. In this dream, which was reported as early as the fourth hour, the patient, a
young man, saw the analyst as himself turning over the case to an older analyst who was
just starting out and did not make a good impression on the patient. The transfer had
taken place in a routine manner and the older man, who had very little hair left, seemed
uninterested. In his associations the patient admitted that he had unexpressed qualms
about being a control case and had tried to reject the fact that his analyst was in training.
He added facetiously that he wondered why he received the special privileges of a
control case and that he was cheating the analyst because he had concealed the fact that
he could pay a fee of one dollar more. When he was a boy and was paid by the
synagogue for singing in the choir he turned over the money that he earned to his
mother, who gave him as much as he needed. This patient was unable to differentiate






between the analyst and his older brother. He was very dependent on his older brother,
but at the same time resented the fact that his mother was uninterested in him and that
he had to be content with the brother as a parent substitute. The analyst appeared to him
as only another of the choir boys of the Institute, who was supposed to turn over the
money and the case to a parent supervisor. The patient paid only a token fee, and this
was another contributing factor which made the analytic situation resemble too closely a
real situation in the patient's childhood. Furthermore, the analyst really had shown
some of the concern of an older brother in the initial hours and had then suddenly
become completely inactive without preparing the patient for this change in attitude.
It often becomes clear even in the initial stage of an analysis that the patient is unable to
differentiate between the analyst and a significant
- 244 person in the past. This occurs if the analyst in his appearance and behaviour really
resembles such a person too closely and the transference has become unmanageable
because of being too real. The patient must then be referred to another analyst, often at
once. Blitzsten pointed out that it is the particular advantage of a trial analysis to bring
such a situation into the open, and, by referring the patient at an early stage of the
analysis, to avoid a narcissistic injury to him. He used to reassure a new patient that the
trial analysis does not put the patient on trial but allows participants to find out whether
they will be able to work together, and while it is true that not every patient can get
along with every analyst, it also is not given to every analyst to subserve the needs of
every type of patient. It might turn out that it would serve the patient's needs better to
go to another man, or perhaps rather a woman.
The analyst as a mere screen or mirror does not exist in life, but this ideal of an analyst
should be approached as closely as possible, and certainly nothing should be carried
into the analysis except what the patient brings to it. If the analyst has introduced
something into the analytic situation which in fact repeats an ancient interpersonal
situation for the patient, this, according to Gitelson (4), is not a counter-transference; on
the contrary the patient has become a transference object for the analyst and realizes it.
It is a reaction to the patient as a whole, and more troublesome, because more illusory,
if positively toned and eventually rationalized as an improved paternal or maternal or
corrective emotional attitude. Gitelson's opinion is that 'enthusiasm about a patient,
masquerading under the clich positive counter-transference, may be the opposite
number of the defensive erotized positive transference with which some patients elude
us.' Transferences of the analyst to patients occur very early in the analysis, in contrast
to countertransference manifestations of the analyst, which appear later in the context of
an established analytic situation. They are reactions to partial aspects of the patient, and
usually expressed in annoyance with him after he has, to quote Gitelson again, 'touched
on vulnerable aspects of surviving character defences of the analyst.'






The patient, however, may also compulsively seek to annoy the analyst because this was
the only effective method by which he could keep an indifferent parent occupied. To
such a patient one may just as well admit that one is not immune against irritation,
because he knows too well that the angelic goodness of a parent who does not admit
being annoyed is spurious. He may also be told that his hostility is only a device in his
frantic search for contact. The problem which these patients present is that they equate
silence with indifference, so that the analytic situation itself becomes an identical
repetition of a traumatic experience with a significant person in the patient's childhood.
They are likely to develop an erotized positive transference without participation of the
analyst, and regardless of whether the analyst accidentally bears some resemblance to
the significant person of the past or not. Following the advice given by Blitzsten, such a
situation has to be worked through very early, and if the analyst appears as himself
already in the first dream, the situation is immediately brought into focus and permits a
fairly accurate evaluation of the prognosis.
REFERENCES
BALINT, MICHAEL 1952 'On Love and Hate.' Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 33
BIBRING, GRETE L. 1936 'A Contribution to the Subject of Transference Resistance.'
Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 17
FRENCH, THOMAS M. The Integration of Behaviour Vol. I. (Univ. of Chicago Press,
1952 .)
GITELSON, MAXWELL 1952 'The Emotional Position of the Analyst.' Int. J. PsychoAnal. 33
HORNEY, KAREN New Ways in Psychoanalysis (New York: Norton, 1939 .)
NUNBERG, HERMAN 1951 'Transference and Reality.' Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 32
PENROSE, LIONEL S. 1953 'Psychoanalysis and Experimental Science Int. J. PsychoAnal. 34
PFISTER, OSCAR The Psychoanalytic Method (New York: Moffat, Yard, 1919 .)
RAPPAPORT, ERNEST A. 1956 'The Management of an Erotized Transference.'
Psychoanal. Quarterly 25 515529
SAUL, LEON J. 1956 Panel Reports, 'The Dream in the Practice of Psychoanalysis.' J.
Psychoanal. Assoc. 4
STEKEL, WILHELM. Fortschritte und Technik der Traumdeutung (Weidmann, 1935 .)
SZASZ, THOMAS S. 1956 'On the Experiences of the Analyst in the Psychoanalytic
Situation.' J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assoc. 4

- 245 -






1952) ORAL COMPONENTS OF THE CASTRATION COMPLEX. INT. J.
PSYCHO-ANAL., 33:450 (IJP)

ORAL COMPONENTS OF THE CASTRATION COMPLEX1

REN DE MONCHY, M.D.

The topic of this paper is not a new one. In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, for
example, Freud wrote: 'Castration can be pictured on the basis of the daily experience
of the faeces being separated from the body or on the basis of losing the mother's breast
at weaning'. Several other authors have made contributions to the subject.2 The first,
and in my opinion still the best, is Dr. Strcke's paper published in 1921. Strcke went
much further than Freud and assumed that the emotional weight of the castration
complex is mainly derived from oral frustration.
The reason I take up the subject again is its great practical importance, which is perhaps
not always sufficiently appreciated. Even Freud, the originator of the concept of the
close relationship between genital and pregenital instincts, might have laid still more
stress on the therapeutic value of his discovery. In Analysis Terminable and
Interminable, he wrote: 'We often feel that when we have reached the wish for a penis
and the masculine protest, we have penetrated all the psychological strata and reached
bedrock and that our task is accomplished', and in a footnote: 'What they (men) reject is
not passivity in general but passivity in relation to men. That is to say, the masculine
protest is in fact nothing other than fear of castration'. The expression 'our task is
accomplished' suggests that castration anxiety and penis envy must be accepted as
ultimate facts, which should be independent of earlier experiences. Freud must have
meant those primary reactions in living beings that can so easily and in their purest form
be demonstrated in animals. Von Uexkll and Lorenz call them angeborene
Reaktionsschema, congenital reaction schemes. Animal psychology offers many
examples of such reactions.
I will give two examples: Woodgrouse react at the sight of a sparrow-hawk in the air in
typical fashion: the cock takes up a defensive position, the hen huddles up and seeks
shelter. Young birds that have been kept isolated from birth react in the same way if a
piece of paper of approximately the form of a hawk is moved over the cage. When the
birds are twenty days old the aforementioned difference in behaviour between the cocks
and the hens can already be noted. When the piece of paper, the attrappe, as the animal
psychologist calls it, is made more and more unlike the hawk, the reaction grows
progressively weaker and finally disappears.






A new-born chick in a hatcher picks at grain on the floor and also at small painted
yellow spots. The dimensions of the spots must be approximately those of the grain. If
they are too big or too small the chick ignores them.
Observation of isolated animals affords many examples of congenital reaction schemes,
which determine mating, fighting, or seeking of food. All these examples have the
same characteristics:
a.

the limited variability both of the 'key situation' and of the 'response';

b.
when an 'ill-fitting key' is used as an attrappe the response becomes weaker, but
the quality of the reaction scarcely changes.
It seems improbable that similar congenital reaction schemes are to be found
exclusively in animals and never in human beings. Lorenz gives some convincing
examples of human congenital reaction schemes. Most, like the animal reaction
schemes, are certain typical reactions to chemical substances by the organs of smell and
of taste. In contrast with human reactions to optical and acoustic stimuli, these reaction
schemes, like those of animals, have very limited variability. Smell and taste
symbolism hardly exists. This explains the scantiness of mental processes in connection
with these senses. There is no form of art in connection with smell and taste
perceptions comparable with painting, sculpture, or music. Combinations of colour and
spatial relations

1Read at the 17th International Psycho-Analytical Congress, Amsterdam, 1952.

2Strcke, Alexander, Rank, Helene Deutsch, Bergler-Eidelberg.
- 450 can represent or express a multitude of complicated mental experiences. Smell and taste
can hardly give more than direct sensual perceptions without a 'higher' meaning. The
difficulty of describing a smell or a taste, as well as the difficulty of imagining these
sensations, might have the same origin.
Lorenz and von Uexkll's theory is not in contradiction with the psycho-analytic
concepts. There is ample evidence that the reaction of the three-year-old child on the
observation of anatomical difference between the male and the female genitals can to a
certain extent be compared with congenital reaction schemes in animals. When Freud
said that the therapist has reached 'rock bottom' when he has made the patient conscious
of the penis envy of the castration anxiety, he obviously meant the same biological fact,
which the animal psychologist calls the 'congenital reaction scheme'.
It is reasonable to presume that the most general rules of the instinctual behaviour of
animals can also be applied to the human instinctual functions. However, we must bear
in mind that there also are important differences between human and animal






psychology. In the first place, there is the methodological difference: experiments with
human beings are limited. A bird can be born and educated in complete isolation; a
human being cannot be kept free from external experiences to the same extent. If the
analyst wants to study congenital reaction schemes, he is committed to the very first
period of life. Only the sucking instinct can be considered to be more or less
undisturbed primary behaviour, relatively free from environmental influences. All later
instinctive reactions are influenced by previous experiences.
In addition to the practical circumstances that complete isolation is impossible with
human beings, there are certain intrinsic differences between human and animal
psychology. With animals the attrappe, for instance the piece of paper representing the
hawk, must resemble a hawk rather closely. If not, the reaction fails to occur. With
animals, the variability of the stimulating perception, the instinctual object, is very
limited: only a well-fitting 'key' will work. With human beings, however, the
variability of the instinctual object is enormous. Under certain conditions very different
objects may start an instinctual process.
The other intrinsic difference is the degree of variability of instinctual actions. The
instinctual response of animals to a 'key' stimulus is rather strictly limited. In human
beings, on the other hand, an instinctual impulse may give rise to a widespread range of
actions. The characteristic qualities of human psychologythe variability of the
instinctual object and of the instinctual aimare the basis of analytical work. The
analyst has to find out how the original stimulus is replaced by symbolic stimuli and
which actions are substitutes for the original response.
The reaction schemes in animals are independent of one another; in human beings
however, there is a constant interplay of drives. The typical stimulating perception of
one drive can function as a substitute stimulus for some other instinct. In a fellatio
fantasy, the nipple is replaced by the penis, for example. The congenital reaction
schemes in human beings are not so well 'isolated' as they are in animals.
If in a child, at a certain age, a new form of instinctual activity manifests itself, this
manifestation is never quite independent of previous forms of activity or previous
experiences. We can agree in part with Susan Isaacs (Childhood and After, p. 94) when
she wrote: 'Other types of activity, other relations derive their first impetus, their first
cathexis from the infant aim of sucking, biting and swallowing'. This could be
expressed somewhat more cautiously by saying that instinctual objects of an earlier
phase are apt to become a 'key function', an attrappe, for later instinctual processes.
This is the blending of drives, which apparently is characteristic of the human mind.
The extensive variability of the drive object is obvious with regard to the oral instinct.
The original 'key stimulus' cannot be anything but the mother's breast, especially the
nipple. The baby, however, puts all objects in its mouth. In this connection an
interesting fact can be observed, a fact that has scarcely aroused the attention it merits:
after weaning, the tendency to put the nipple in the mouth vanishes surprisingly rapidly,






in a month or so, and long before the tendency to put everything else in the mouth
disappears. The only explanation for this is a partial but violent repression. The
sucking reflex has certainly not completely disappeared. One may even see the reflex in
senile arteriosclerotic patients. If a pencil is held some centimetres from the mouth, the
pursing of the lips and the rhythmical movements can be unmistakable.
Newly weaned infants, in whom the impulse to take the nipple in the mouth has
disappeared, still retain a keen interest in the mother's breast. A
- 451 one-year-old boy examined the mother's nipple with his finger four months after
weaning. He called the nipple 'moo'. In one of his books there was a picture of a cow,
his parents had told him that the cow says 'moo', and he therefore calls the cow 'moo'.
The udder drew his special attention. Perhaps it reminded him of his own penis. As a
baby's penis undeniably resembles a nipple, the penis acted as an attrappe. The same
mechanism explains the fact that he also called his father's penis 'moo'.
The dream of an adult man corresponded with the child's reaction. He saw in the dream
a woman's breast with unnaturally large nipples. 'These nipples hung down and were
slightly bent', he said. 'They were like a small, soft penis, like the penis of a very young
child.' The dream came during a period of the analysis in which castration anxiety came
forth, combined with many oral fantasies.
In a female patient, the intimate relation between the mother's breast and the castration
complex was equally obvious. Here follow some dreams which she had in the course of
six weeks.
Dream I: 'I was going to travel to Rome. Just before entering the city I met a woman
who was singing out of tune. I thought: "Now everything is spoiled". I stood before
two high, white walls, which formed a sharp angle that pointed towards me. This point
could penetrate my body and I could not enter the city because the point would come
into me. The two white walls with the sharp point reminded me of a woman's breasts
and nipples. Then I saw a friend, who is bringing up her little daughter without love.
This friend begged me to visit her mother, I entered an unfurnished apartment and saw
only two cupboards, which also looked like breasts. I was carrying many objects,
including a bottle of milk. I dropped the bottle and had to go after another bottle of
exactly the same kind of milk, because it is unfair not to give a child the milk it wants.
When I could not enter Rome I thought it was unfair that I could not have an orgasm by
masturbation like a boy. Romulus and Remus were nursed by a wolf. So they, too, did
not get the milk they ought to have. Their mother must have abandoned them'.3 In
many previous dreams the colour 'white' is connected with the mother (two white walls
in this case).
Dream II: 'I saw my mother with a two-year-old boy in her arms. Then I was the little
boy myself. I had my back towards my mother and threw myself forward, that is to say






away from my mother. I vomited a thick, white-yellow fluid, like milk or perhaps
semen.'
Dream III: 'I was a poor boy of about six years old, like Oliver Twist. I was in a street
in London and I met X (her lover). He said: "Go to that stand, you will find something
there" Under loose leaves I found two coins, as big as a penny. They resembled the
aureola mamm of breasts under a blouse with frills, such as my mother used to wear
when I was a child. The coins might also have been two strawberries under white
snow.'
Dream IV: 'I saw the old-fashioned cake tins that we have at home. They are about one
inch in diameter. I put them all on top of one another so that they became a bar, and I
pushed the bar into my vagina.'
Dream V: 'I saw two bananas. In some way I knew that they were penises. I wanted to
eat them.'
This patient was the eldest of several children. When she was two years old there was a
reproduction of one of Raphael's famous pictures hanging in her bedroom. This picture
shows the Virgin Mary with two small naked boys, Jesus and St. John. The genitals are
clearly depicted. The little girl was terribly afraid of this picture, and could not sleep if
it was not turned towards the wall. She had already mentioned this fact at an earlier
stage of the treatment. Now she came to think about it again and realized that the
penises of the two boys reminded her of the nipples of the female breasts. The parents
had hung the picture in her room when the mother was expecting her second child. The
idea was to teach the girl what a boy looked like, in case the baby should be a boy.
These are only a few examples from a long analysis. One sees clearly how the
ambivalent longing for the mother's breast is intermixed with the penis envy. Especially
interesting in these dreams is it that the breasts are represented as twin objects: two
white walls, two coins, two strawberries, two cupboards, two bananas, two small
penises in the Raphael picture.
The conclusion to be drawn from these examples is that clinical facts afford further
evidence to support the theory that penis envy and castration anxiety are not
exclusively, not pure congenital reaction schemes in the sense of von Uexkll and
Lorenz or 'rock bottom' facts as formulated by Freud.
The little boy's penis acts as an attrappe, representing the nipple. This explains, in part,
the great emotional value of the observation of the anatomical sex difference: the
absence of the penis with girls, is connected with the loss of the mother's breast and the
anxiety concerning loss of the penis has one of its roots in the same experience. Thus it
is comprehensible how a relatively small physical difference can often have






3Dr. Servadio told me that philologists suppose that the original meaning of the word
'Rome' is 'breast'. My patient did not know this fact.
- 452 a catastrophic pathogenetic influence. Here we also find a plausible explanation why
the girl holds the mother responsible for the lack of the penis: the mother once took the
nipple away from her.
Even with small boys the earliest castration anxiety is connected with the mother and is
of an oral type. Only a few years later, after the development of the Oedipus complex,
the father assumes the role of the castrator in the boy's imagination. However, in many
patients the castration anxiety retains much of the oral-maternal character (vagina
dentata, etc.).
The widespread belief in the possibility of fortifying the sexual potency by eating
certain pills, roots, nuts, etc. scarcely ever has a pharmacological foundation. Most
often it is based an magical fantasy. The concept of the 'phallic mother' is no longer
strange if measured by the equation, penis = nipple.
The female belief in having had a penis once upon a time belongs to the same category.
In the first period of life the mother's nipple is not exclusively experienced as an
'external object'.
The symbolic significance of the extraction of teeth is reminiscent of the loss of the
nipple. A young man had a dream in which he was in the dentist's chair. He lost his
teeth, which ran out of his mouth as fluid gold. The Verschiebung nach oben the
displacement from below upwards, can be seen as a tendency to revert to the mouth.
Previous to the Verschiebung nach oben there has been a Verschiebung nach unten, a
displacement from above downwards.
In terms of animal psychology this could be formulated as follows: in early infancy the
penis has been an attrappe for the nipple. Later on, when the genital primacy is
established, then the nipple, the breast, the teeth, the nose, etc. may function as an
attrappe for the genitals. The same could be said of the mouthvagina relationship.
It is questionable whether the intimate relation between the oral and the genital
experiences is a general phenomenon or is only so prominent in cases of disharmonious
conditions during earliest childhood. There are several arguments in favour of the first
supposition. I might mention the frequency of the dentist dream, which practically
everybody has had, or the apparent relation between infantile masturbation and thumbsucking. If the castration fantasies always draw powerful contributions from previous
developmental phases, it may be questioned whether the Oedipus complex and the
subsequent castration complex can fully maintain their central position in psychoanalytic theory. The problem can be formulated as follows: Do the oral and the anal
experiences become more important later on in a regressive manner? Is it the Oedipus
complex that evokes the castration fantasies? and do the oral experiences become






secondary to their high emotional value? Or does the castration comlex receive its
principal effective charge from the early oral complexes? Only clinical observation can
decide which version is correct. I am inclined to believe that working out the oral
frustration has been of considerable help to several patients with persistent castration
anxiety or penis envy. This bears out the primary importance of the oral experiences.
If the oral experiences during infancy merely 'colour' the castration complex (Fenichel)
it is difficult to explain these therapeutic results.
It is somewhat surprising to find that even those authors who lay special stress on the
influence of oral experiences on the final shape of the genital functions still use the
expression Urkastration, primeval castration (Strcke, Helene Deutsch, Rank). This
does not seem to correspond entirely with their line of thinking. It is not the castration
fantasy, but rather the oral frustration that is primeval.
REFERENCES
ALEXANDER, FRANZ 'Zur Genese des Kastrations-skomplexes' Int. Zschr. f. Ps.-An.
16 1930 p. 349
BERGLER, EDMUND, and EIDELBERG, LUDWIG 'Der Mammakomplex des
Mannes' Int. Zschr. f. Ps.-An. 19 1933 p. 547
DEUTSCH, HELENE Zur Psychoanalyse der weiblichen Sexualfunktionen Int. Ps.-An.
Verl. Vienna, 1925
RANK, OTTO 'Zur Genese der Genitalitt' Int. Zschr. f. Ps.-An. 11 1925 p. 411
STRCKE, AUG 'The Castration Complex' Int. J. Psycho-Anal 2 1921
FENICHEL, OTTO 'The Pregenital Antecedents of the Oedipus Complex' Int. J.
Psycho-Anal. 12 1931

- 453 -

Incidences thrapeutiques de la prise de conscience de

l'envie de pnis dans la nvrose obsessionnelle fminine
uvres psychanalytiques - I. La relation d'objet
(nvrose obsessionnelle - dpersonnalisation),
Paris, Payot, 1967. pp. 49-75
Maurice BOUVET

Le travail que nous vous prsentons aujourd'hui intresse un cas de nvrose

obsessionnelle fminine, qui nous a paru possder une iconographie onirique
particulirement riche, susceptible de rendre plus facilement objectivables les variations
du transfert et les modifications de la structure psychologique, qui, dans des cas de ce
genre, peuvent se produire sous l'influence de l'analyse. Nous disons bien dans des cas
semblables, car nous aurions pu aisment remplacer cette observation par une autre qui
a tmoign d'une volution peu prs parallle; de plus chez d'autres sujets dont
l'analyse est moins avance, une interprtation semblable des faits semble devoir
s'imposer, tout au moins en ce qui concerne l'essentiel de ce que nous dsirons soutenir
ici ; savoir : que la prise de conscience de l'envie du pnis intervient de faon
favorable sur l'volution des phnomnes de transfert et facilite l'assouplissement du
surmoi fminin infantile. Ce sont l, nous le savons, des constatations de pratique
journalire, et il serait inutile de produire cette observation si elle ne tendait dmontrer
que, comme l'obsd masculin, la femme a besoin de s'identifier sur un mode rgressif
l'homme pour pouvoir se librer des angoisses de la petite enfance ; mais alors que le
premier s'appuiera sur cette identification, pour transformer l'objet d'amour infantile en
objet d'amour gnital, elle, la femme, se fondant d'abord sur cette mme identification,
tend abandonner ce premier objet et s'orienter vers une fixation htrosexuelle,
comme si elle pouvait procder une nouvelle identification fminine, cette fois sur la
personne de l'analyste. Il va sans dire que l'interprtation des phnomnes de transfert
est ici particulirement dlicate. Si la personnalit de l'analyste masculin est d'abord
apprhende comme celle d'un homme avec toutes les interdictions, les peurs et
l'agressivit que cela comporte, peu aprs que le dsir de possession phallique, et
corrlativement de castration de l'analyste, est mis jour, et que de ce fait, les effets de
dtente prcits ont t obtenus, cette personnalit de l'analyste masculin est assimile
celle d'une mre bienveillante. Cette assimilation ne dmontre-t-elle pas que la source






essentielle de l'agressivit antimasculine se trouve dans la pulsion destructive initiale
dont la mre tait l'objet ? La prise de conscience de l'une entrane le droit au libre
exercice de l'autre et le pouvoir libratoire de cette prise de conscience du dsir de
possession phallique evient alors de plano comprhensible, ainsi que le passage d'une
identification l'autre en fonction d'une ambigut fondamentale de la personne de
l'analyste dont l'aspect masculin est d'abord seul perceptible la malade.

OBSERVATION.
Description clinique. Anamnse.

tant donn le temps invitablement assez long que ncessite la relation de ce

fragment d'analyse, nous allons essayer de vous prsenter de faon trs rsume l'expos
pralable des phnomnes morbides et de la situation familiale de Rene.

C'est une femme de 50 ans environ, bien portante, mre de deux enfants,
exerant une profession paramdicale, qui a subi dans un proche pass une analyse de
deux ans sur laquelle nous avons peu de renseignements. Nous savons qu'elle eut pour
son mdecin un sentiment assez vif qu'elle n'extriorisa pas facilement et qu'elle
interrompit sa cure sous des prtextes varis. Elle n'tait d'ailleurs encourage dans cette
attitude par une amlioration trs importante de ses phnomnes obsessionnels qui
s'amenuisaient ds qu'elle entrait en traitement, pour rapparatre d'ailleurs quelque
temps aprs la suspension de celui-ci.

Elle tait dans un tat d'angoisse extrme quand elle vint nous trouver et nous
dmes la prendre en traitement immdiatement, ne pouvant la recevoir, comme elle tait
en surnombre, que deux fois par semaine.

Elle souffrait d'obsessions thme religieux : phrases injurieuses ou

scatologiques s'imposant elle incoerciblement en contradiction formelle avec ses
convictions, ds qu'elle dsirait prier, ou mme spontanment. Elle se reprsentait en
outre, imaginativement, des organes gnitaux masculins, sans qu'il s'agisse de
phnomnes hallucinatoires, la place de l'hostie. Elle ragissait tout cela, quoique ne
s'en dissimulant pas le caractre morbide, par une crainte violente de damnation. Cet






tat s'tait aggrav lorsqu'elle avait essay de diminuer volontairement ses possibilits
de maternit, mais avait commenc ds son mariage. Notons ce dtail important qui
explique la thmatisation religieuse principale de ses obsessions : sa mre fut seule
responsable de son ducation catholique, et son conflit avec elle devait se reporter sur
son activit spirituelle, qui n'eut d'ailleurs jamais qu'un caractre d'obligation et de
contrainte. Elle avait prsent en outre d'autres phnomnes obsessionnels, soit
concurremment, soit isolment, de telle manire qu'on pouvait la considrer comme
malade, depuis l'ge de 7 ans environ.

Voici la liste de ses principales obsessions

crainte obsdante d'avoir contract la syphilis, ce qui l'amena s'opposer, en

vain d'ailleurs, au mariage de son fils an ;

obsessions infanticides entremles ses obsessions religieuses ; ses propres

enfants n'en taient pas l'objet ;

obsessions d'empoisonnement de sa famille par des rognures d'ongles tombant

dans la nourriture, ou par simple contact des doigts avec les aliments, ou encore,
par contact des doigts avec le pain, mme protg par un linge ;

la pubert, obsession d'trangler son pre, obsession de semer des pingles

dans le lit des parents pour piquer sa mre ;

l'ge de 7 ans, apparition de phobies touchant la scurit de ses parents phobies soulages par un simple moyen de dfense logique : vrification de leur
retour la maison, par exemple.

Contre ces penses, cette malade emploie des procds de dfense dont les uns
sont encore d'apparence logique : vrifications, prcautions ; dont les autres sont
franchement magiques et se rsument dans l'annulation : dans l'enfance toucher 3 fois la
plinthe de l'appartement pour annuler . Plus tard, se rpter trois fois non, je ne l'ai
pas pens .






Il suffit de parcourir la liste de ces phantasmes pour se rendre compte qu'ils sont
sous-tendus par une norme agressivit ; d'ailleurs, comme il est classique de le
constater, l'agressivit infiltre le moyen de dfense lui-mme. Cette femme souffrant
d'un complexe de castration fminine annule ses penses agressives de castration par la
raffirmation sur un mode symbolique de son dsir de possession phallique, triple
rptition de la formule conjuratoire .

Sa situation familiale.

Nous n'osons la dire dipienne, car si l'organisation gnitale a exist, elle fut
extrmement fragile et l'analyse ne retrouve qu'avec peine, maintenant, des rves o
l'attaque sexuelle de l'homme est reprsente sur un mode sadique terrifiant.

A premire vue, l'dipe paraissait normal ; Rene faisait l'loge de son pre et
affichait la haine la plus tenace l'gard de sa mre. Puis, l'ambivalence l'gard des
deux parents se fit jour - enfin l'dipe apparut compltement invers. Cette femme
s'tait entirement identifie son pre et l'ensemble de sa vie motionnelle tait
uniquement polarise par sa mre ; elle accabla en effet son pre de critiques svres
visant sa situation. Il tait brigadier de gendarmerie et la fillette rougissait de cet tat,
qui l'humiliait auprs de ses compagnes. Son caractre : il tait bon, mais ne savait pas
le montrer. Il tait chagrin, taciturne, dprim, ne contrebalanant nullement la rigidit
de la mre par une attitude comprhensive et affectueuse ; sa situation dans le mnage :
il n'avait pu triompher de l'attachement de sa femme un premier amour, d'ailleurs
platonique, il tait jaloux et ne rompait son mutisme que pour clater en scnes
vhmentes dont il sortait toujours vaincu.

En ralit, derrire ces reproches se dissimulait une agressivit infiniment plus

importante, la malade produisit des rves indiscutables de castration de son pre, tel
celui-ci par exemple : je rentre dans la chambre mortuaire de mon oncle (frre du
pre). C'est curant : je vois ses organes gnitaux en pleine dcomposition ; et les
associations fournies n'eurent trait qu'aux circonstances de la mort du pre, nonces
sans aucune motion. Mon pre , dira-t-elle, n'a tenu aucune place dans ma vie
intime. Ce n'tait d'ailleurs pas exact, puisque sont venus au jour, rcemment, des
rves de poursuite amoureuse sous forme de cauchemars, l'agresseur se comportant
comme un meurtrier. Nous y ferons allusion plus loin. Il y avait donc eu, une certaine
phase du dveloppement de Rene, une attirance pour le pre, mais sur un mode
entirement pr-gnital.






Quant sa mre, si l'investigation analytique montrait d'abord les sentiments
ngatifs que la malade nourrissait son gard, elle ne tarda pas rendre vident l'intrt
passionn qu'elle avait pour elle. Si elle lui reprochait avec vhmence de l'avoir
contrainte, soumise une discipline froce, empche de s'exprimer, de lui avoir interdit
toute relation masculine si innocente soit-elle, elle lui en voulait surtout de ne pas l'avoir
assez aime et
de lui avoir prfr constamment sa sur cadette, de 7 ans moins ge qu'elle. Ses
sentiments de jalousie ne sont d'ailleurs pas teints et Rene ne renonce
qu'insensiblement la certitude de cette prfrence affiche par la mre pour sa cadette.

Mais la violence mme de ses plaintes contre sa mre tait le tmoignage de

l'affection immense qu'elle lui portait. Elle la trouvait d'un milieu plus lev que celui
de son pre, la jugeait plus intelligente et, surtout, tait fascine par son nergie, son
caractre, son esprit de dcision, son autorit. Les rares moments o la mre se
dtendait la remplissaient d'une joie indicible. Mais, jusqu'ici, il n'a jamais t question
de dsirs de possession de la mre franchement sexualiss. Rene tait lie elle sur un
plan exclusivement sado-masochique. L'alliance mre-fille jouait ici avec une extrme
rigueur et toute transgression du pacte provoquait un mouvement d'une violence
extrme, qui, jusqu' ces derniers temps, ne fut jamais objective. Toute personne,
s'immisant dans cette union, tait l'objet de souhaits de mort, ainsi que le dmontra un
matriel abondant, soit onirique, soit infantile, relatif au dsir de la mort de la sur.

Nous regrettons de ne pouvoir procder ici l'analyse minutieuse de l'anamnse

de Rene et de ne pouvoir montrer qu'elle avait de toute vidence reproduit, dans tout le
cours de sa vie motionnelle, l'essentiel de son attitude l'gard de ses parents. Avant
d'aller plus loin, signalons un traumatisme qu'elle dit avoir subi vers l'ge de 3 ans, et
sur la ralit duquel il est impossible de se prononcer : un homme la portant sur son
bras, lui aurait touch les parties gnitales, ce qui lui aurait occasionn un vif sentiment
de frayeur ; elle en fait le rcit sans aucune motion. Elle n'eut
pendant son enfance ou son adolescence aucun sentiment objectal vrai pour un garon
de son ge.

Au contraire, elle prouva, tout au cours de sa vie, des amitis passionnes pour
des filles. Enfant elle se livra d'abord des jeux sexuels : se mettre des btonnets dans
la vulve, ou se faire administrer des lavements par des fillettes plus ges, ce qui lui
procurait un plaisir extrmement vif dont elle a gard trs nettement le souvenir. Mais
surtout, l'adolescence, elle prouva une trs violente passion pour une infirmire






amricaine qui cantonnait prs de chez elle. Rien ne permet de croire que cette amiti
fut sexualise mais tout montre qu'elle fut intense ; elle se trouvait trs heureuse auprs
de cette femme qui, type accompli de la bonne mre, la comprenait, l'aimait, la traitait
en gale. Plus tard, l'infirmire partie, elle renoua des relations de ce genre, en gnral
avec des amies plus ges.

Son mariage fut une union de convenances et d'intrt ; son mari tait
professeur, mais surtout officier de rserve, ce qui la flattait et annulait le sentiment
d'infriorit personnel que lui avait caus la situation de sous-officier de gendarmerie de
son pre. Au surplus, il contrebalanait ses avantages qui eussent pu faire de lui un
homme puissant, et par l l'effrayer, par des caractristiques psychologiques trs
fminines ; il tait doux, trs bon, trs dvou et elle sentait confusment qu'il ne la
dominerait jamais. Elle russit d'ailleurs le castrer compltement sur tous les modes
par ses angoisses, ses exigences doucereuses, tout en ayant, dans son comportement
journalier, une absence apparente de volont et d'initiative qui ressemblait fort sa
passivit envers sa mre. Au fond, elle eut avec lui l'attitude ambivalente typique qu'elle
ne cessa de dployer l'gard de sa mre.

Quant ses enfants, si le second chappe trs lentement grce l'analyse de sa

mre une inhibition au travail qui risquait de compromettre ses tudes, l'an, au
caractre marqu, a russi trs brillamment au point de vue professionnel. Il causait,
dans son enfance, la malade qui sentait sa forte personnalit, un sentiment de terreur
panique. Elle n'osait rester seule avec lui. Ce garon s'est mari trs jeune, mais s'il a pu
chapper l'treinte de sa mre, il lui tmoigne un dsintrt glacial dont elle souffre
beaucoup et, surtout, il se conduit de faon nvrotique avec sa jeune femme.

ANALYSE.

Nous ne pouvons donner ici qu'un bref rsum de cette analyse encore en cours
et qui dure depuis 14 mois. Notre intention est d'insister surtout sur les lments
significatifs de cette observation et plus prcisment sur l'tude du transfert et des rves.

Il est videmment tout fait arbitraire de diviser une analyse en plusieurs

priodes, mais ici deux phases semblent peu prs nettement tranches, l'une
essentiellement d'opposition, pendant laquelle rien ne semblait bouger, l'autre
essentiellement volutive tant en ce qui concerne le transfert que la structure






psychologique de la patiente. Le passage de l'une l'autre nous a paru dtermin par
l'interprtation d'un rve qui traduisait un dsir inconscient de possession phallique.

La phase d'opposition

La situation, au dpart, ne semblait gure satisfaisante. Quoiqu'elle ft

extrmement anxieuse, demandant d'tre immdiatement prise en traitement, cette
femme entendait manifestement imposer l'analyste les conditions dans lesquelles elle
acceptait d'tre traite. Notre attitude fut tout la fois extrmement ferme et empreinte
d'une sympathie bienveillante. Le mme phnomne paradoxal se reproduisait avec
nous ; quelques sances de traitement suffisaient la librer de ses obsessions
religieuses, en mme temps qu'elle affichait l'gard de son mdecin une
opposition si nettement formule qu'elle ne pouvait elle-mme qu'en tre frappe, elle
gardait un silence peu prs total qu'elle n'interrompait que pour dire : je ne veux rien
vous dire, c'est trop humiliant, dgradant, ridicule, je connais assez bien les mdecins
pour savoir qu'entre eux ils se moquent de leurs malades - il n'y a aucun motif pour que
vous chappiez la rgle, d'ailleurs vous tes plus instruit que moi, vous allez vous
moquer de ma navet - c'est impossible pour une femme de parler aux hommes. De
fait, elle exposait sur un mode trs gnral les sentiments que lui inspirait un homme
jug fort : infriorit-peur. Il nous fut possible, ds ce moment, de hasarder une
hypothse : il n'y avait, disions-nous, aucune raison pour qu'une analyse, peine
commenante, ait pu produire un rsultat si surprenant : il fallait donc admettre que
toutes ces manifestations d'indpendance auxquelles elle se livrait remplaaient toutes
ses obsessions verbales qui exprimaient en fin de compte un sentiment de rvolte
l'gard de Dieu et de sa loi, affect dont elle avait elle-mme admis l'existence. Au
surplus, elle nous rvlait bientt une obsession toute particulire qui la remplissait de
terreur. Souvent, quand elle avait bien extrioris sa colre l'gard de son mari, elle
tait saisie d'une pense inattendue : si mon mari tait Dieu ? Ainsi il y avait pour
elle une analogie certaine entre l'homme avec qui elle vivait et Dieu, et ce chanon
intermdiaire nous permit de lui faire sentir facilement le bien-fond de notre
suggestion : si elle concentrait toute son hostilit sur nous, elle se dtournait de l'objet
habituel de sa rbellion. D'ailleurs, le traitement se poursuivant et ses sentiments envers
nous tant un peu moins chargs d'agressivit, elle devint nouveau injurieuse et
scatologique dans sa vie religieuse et comprit fort bien ce qui se passait, mais ce ne fut
que beaucoup plus tard que son acrimonie envers nous diminua franchement. Pendant
des mois, elle resta silencieuse, n'ouvrant la bouche que pour se plaindre ; ces
prventions habituelles contre l'homme, se joignait un grief trs important et bien
particulier : elle nous reprochait de lui prendre de






l'argent. Le paiement des honoraires tait, en effet, l'une des choses auxquelles elle avait
le plus de mal se rsoudre. Nous nous tions efforc de dterminer avec soin une
somme qui tait compatible avec une prolongation indtermine de traitement mais qui,
eu gard son budget, tait pour elle une gne relle, ce qui constituait en fin de compte
une sorte de pression continuelle de la ralit extrieure, l'invitant parler et ne pas
prolonger indfiniment l'exercice de cette forme muette d'hostilit laquelle
inconsciemment elle tenait si fort. Ce sacrifice montaire, auquel elle essaya d'chapper
de toutes les manires quand il lui advint de manquer une sance, en invoquant de
pseudo-cas de forces majeures, prtextes que nous n'acceptmes jamais, tout en prenant
soin de lui en dmontrer la vanit, lui tait d'autant plus pnible qu'il lui interdisait,
disait-elle, de s'acheter les mille accessoires de la coquetterie fminine : Vous
accroissez ainsi mon sentiment d'infriorit, quand je me compare aux autres, je souffre
d'tre mal vtue. Elle ressentait nos exigences comme une punition ou mieux comme
une sorte de diminution de puissance - elle ne pouvait se mettre en valeur. Connaissant
son attitude hostile l'gard des hommes, ayant dj interprt sa conduite l'analyse
comme un refus de se plier une rgle impose par un homme, nous fmes tout
naturellement amen lui demander ce qui lui venait l'ide propos de ce besoin de
plaire qui lui semblait si vif. La rponse fut conforme notre attente : Quand je suis
bien habille, les hommes me dsirent et je me dis avec une joie trs relle : en voil
encore qui en seront pour leurs frais. Je suis contente d'imaginer qu'ils puissent en
souffrir. Ainsi ses proccupations vestimentaires n'taient-elles qu'un des multiples
aspects de sa haine de l'homme. A ce moment, la malade liait parfaitement, comme
quivalents, les manifestations obsessionnelles religieuses l'gard de Dieu, les troubles
de comportement l'gard de son mari et enfin son refus de l'analyse, puisqu' vrai dire
elle venait surtout aux sances pour affirmer qu'elle ne dirait rien. Elle essaya plusieurs
fois de rompre le traitement, se disant gurie comme on sait, renona ses projets de
fuite devant le rappel du caractre trompeur de ses amliorations prcdentes et devant
l'affirmation nergique que nous n'tions pas dcid la reprendre en traitement si elle
interrompait sa cure malgr notre avis formel. Elle produisit ce moment une petite
phobie montrant combien elle tait irrite de ne pouvoir nous imposer sa volont : Si
je me suicidais ou si je mourais, le docteur serait peut-tre accus de meurtre et
condamn , ce phantasme tant conu sous forme de crainte. Elle se plaignait toujours
de la charge financire du traitement, numrait complaisamment tous les achats qu'elle
aurait pu se permettre et revenait sans cesse sur le dsir qu'elle avait de se procurer des
chaussures. Les hommes, disait-elle, taient trs sensibles la vue d'une femme bien
chausse.

Puis vint le rve qui vers le cinquime mois du traitement devait permettre
l'analyse de progresser enfin et de s'engager dans une voie nouvelle : je suis dans le
service hospitalier o je travaille, ma mre vient dans le service ; elle dit du mal de moi
la surveillante. Je suis furieuse et je sors. Je rentre dans la boutique d'un savetier qui se






trouve en face de l'hpital et j'achte une paire de chaussures : puis tout d'un coup,
ouvrant la fentre, je me mets injurier violemment ma mre et le chef de service.
Nous connaissions dj ses sentiments l'gard de sa mre ; elle nous dit dtester la
surveillante qu'elle trouvait injuste et qui elle n'osait jamais rpondre. - Les chaussures
choisies taient trs pointues. Elle s'engagea ensuite dans une digression relative
l'entretien, qu'elle assurait, des chaussures de son pre ; puis elle vint parler du
cordonnier qui tait un homme jeune, brun, et qui n'tait pas sans prsenter quelque
analogie avec nous. Quant au Chef de Service, il tait la fois aim parce que trs juste
(comme son pre) et redout en raison de son renom et de l'appareil qui l'entourait.
Nous lui fmes alors remarquer que dans la premire phase du rve, elle ne pouvait que
supporter l'injustice de sa mre et qu'aprs avoir t acheter des chaussures, il lui tait
possible de se rvolter ouvertement. - Or, cet accessoire tait prcisment de ceux dont
l'analyse la privait. De plus, le cordonnier, qui elle donnait de l'argent, ressemblait fort
l'analyste. Il tait donc clair qu'elle dsirait obtenir de ce dernier quelque chose qui lui
permit de s'affranchir de la crainte de sa mre, dont l'ducation trop svre tait pour
beaucoup dans sa maladie, selon sa propre conception, et que ce quelque chose tait
manifestement symbolis par des chaussures qui l'avaient amene penser celles de
son pre. Nous n'allmes pas plus loin ce jour-l, nous contentant d'ajouter que cette
mme partie du costume fminin l'aidait vaincre son sentiment d'infriorit et lui
permettait d'exercer une petite vengeance antimasculine.

Nous pensions par-devers nous que ce rve exprimait un dsir de possession

phallique. Le pied bien chauss tant reprsentatif du phallus puissant. La possession
seule de cet organe pouvant lui confrer la puissance, lui permettant de renverser la
situation infantile de soumission absolue sa mre et de prendre son tour la position
dominante. Bien entendu, ce rve pouvait avoir une signification plus prcise, le besoin
d'identification au pre qui y tait rvl pouvait laisser entrevoir l'existence d'un dsir
plus sexualis de domination de la mre. Mais la suite de
l'analyse n'a pas formellement tay une hypothse de ce genre. La malade n'a jamais
produit de fantasme de possession gnitale de la mre.
Quoi qu'il en soit, le contenu du rve tait bien celui dont nous lui avions fait
pressentir l'existence. Elle. nous rapportait peu aprs deux fantaisies oniriques qui la
surprenaient beaucoup : je me vois avec l'un de mes seins transform en verge. - C'est
extraordinaire, la nuit dernire je me suis encore vue, mais cette fois avec une verge
entre les deux seins. Elle produisit d'ailleurs successivement deux ou trois autres rves
dans lesquels son dsir d'identification masculine avec possession phallique, et la
signification de ce dsir dans le cadre de ses relations avec sa mre, taient exprims
clairement. En voici un exemple : Je fais rparer ma chaussure chez un cordonnier,
puis je monte sur une estrade orne de lampions bleus, blancs, rouges, o il n'y a que
des hommes - ma mre est dans la foule et m'admire.






A l'aide de tels documents, il nous fut possible d'analyser de faon encore
superficielle ses relations avec les reprsentants du sexe oppos et avec Dieu conu sous
une forme videmment trs anthropomorphique. N'apportait-elle pas la fantaisie
suivante : J'ai rv que j'crasais la tte du Christ coups de pied, et cette tte
ressemblait la vtre - et en association, l'obsession suivante: - Je passe chaque
matin pour me rendre mon travail devant un magasin des Pompes Funbres, o sont
exposs quatre Christs. En les regardant, j'ai la sensation de marcher sur leur verge.
J'prouve une sorte de plaisir aigu et de l'angoisse.

Ainsi, le dsir d'avoir un pnis, fourni par l'analyste, tait-il accompagn d'un
phantasme de destruction de l'organe du mdecin. La tte crase n'tait autre que la
verge, que l'obsession voque en association montrait tre l'objet direct de l'agressivit.

Elle se montra cette poque particulirement hostile, colreuse, fut parfois

scatologique, mais n'extriorisa pas, ce moment du moins, d'autre phantasme de
castration directe de son mdecin, malgr tout le soin mis interprter ses moindres
manifestations d'agressivit.

Tout homme est a priori un adversaire, un ennemi de qui elle a peur, devant qui
elle se sent en situation d'infriorit et, de plus, il lui est interdit de frayer avec lui. Son
sentiment de peur et d'infriorit, elle en rend volontiers en effet sa mre responsable:
Ne lui a-t-elle pas toujours dfendu de frquenter les garons qu'elle lui reprsentait
comme dangereux ? Et en ne lui permettent pas d'avoir avec eux des relations saines, ne
l'a-t-elle pas
rendue incapable de se mesurer avec eux, de jouer avec facilit son rle de femme ?
Les hommes me font peur - Ma mre m'a dit qu'ils taient dangereux, qu'il fallait se
mfier, qu'il tait immoral d'avoir avec eux des relations intimes, mme d'amiti Comment voulez-vous que je sois l'aise puisque je n'ai jamais t autorise les
frquenter et en prendre l'habitude.

Mais derrire tout ceci, se cachait une raison plus profonde de conflit avec
l'homme, conflit videmment culminant, chaque fois qu'une particularit quelconque :
richesse, savoir, caractre, force, lui permettait de se reprsenter un homme comme plus
particulirement possesseur de la puissance. Elle nourrissait, inconsciemment bien
entendu, comme l'analyse venait de le montrer, des sentiments de haine et d'envie
envers ces tres qui possdaient ce dont elle avait toujours t prive : le pnis dans
lequel son psychisme d'enfant avait vu l'attribut essentiel de l'exercice de la puissance,






de nombreux phantasmes l'ont montr, en particulier en ce qui concerne la destruction
de l'enfant symbole du pnis. Les hommes ont une vie tellement facile - si j'tais un
homme ! rptait-elle souvent. - Mais l'on pouvait se demander si ce complexe de
castration fminine, si douloureusement ressenti, tait n la suite de relations
malheureuses avec des hommes brutaux, qui lui eussent fait ressentir le poids de leur
force. En dehors de ce traumatisme de l'ge de trois ans que nous avons rapport plus
haut, elle n'eut jamais souffrir de la contrainte masculine. Son pre tait bon, et surtout
faible, et sans autorit personnelle, et elle ne retrouve rien qui et permis de supposer
qu'elle eut souffrir de son fait. Il semble au surplus qu'elle n'ait jamais couch dans la
chambre de ses parents ; elle n'aurait jamais surpris son pre demi-nu. Mais nous
savons bien qu'il n'est pas besoin de traumatisme effectif de ce genre pour que se
dveloppe chez une fillette l'envie du pnis et le dsir de destruction de celui d'autrui.
Elle n'avait au fond jamais vcu concrtement un conflit prolong avec un homme rel,
par contre, toute sa vie n'avait t qu'une longue lutte avec sa mre. Une grande partie
de l'agressivit dploye contre l'homme porteur du pnis ne prenait-elle pas sa source
dans ses relations malheureuses avec celle-ci ?

Or, la suite de l'analyse devait dmontrer qu'elle se faisait d'elle une

reprsentation phallique et qu'elle lui attribuait un sexe dont le modle lui avait t
fourni par une exprience quotidienne : la vue d'animaux reprsents certainement
comme trs forts et trs dangereux.

D'ailleurs, s'il ne nous a pas t possible d'analyser ce moment de faon

complte les rves o Rene voit ses seins transforms en pnis, cette transformation
mme n'indique-t-elle pas combien l'analogie est grande entre l'organe nourricier
attribut essentiel de la puissance maternelle et celui de la puissance gnitale ? Si elle
voit ses propres seins transforms en pnis, ne reporte-t-elle pas sur le pnis de l'homme
l'agressivit orale dirige primitivement contre le sein maternel ?

Mais, si cette agressivit orale est, en fin de compte, le primum movens de ses
affects de castration masculine, il nous parat intressant de continuer montrer
comment devint vident pour la malade, cette transposition de son agressivit de la mre
l'homme.






Deuxime phase de l'analyse.

Elle n'admit pas d'emble ce dsir de possession phallique pourtant clairement

exprim, et si elle acceptait maintenant notre analyse de ses rapports avec Dieu, son
mari et nous-mme, elle n'en maintenait pas moins son opinion sur le caractre artificiel
et proprement arbitraire de nos interprtations de ses rves. je n'ai jamais dsir tre un
homme, disait-elle. Quoi qu'il en soit, partir de ce moment, son comportement
l'analyse changea, ce qui signifiait videmment que son transfert voluait. Ce fut
d'abord peine perceptible et cela se traduisit uniquement par la cessation de son
attitude rcriminatrice; elle ne rptait plus que sa position tait humiliante, qu'elle avait
peur, et qu'elle donnait de l'argent injustement, comme si ses prventions l'gard de
l'analyste homme taient tombes ; par contre, elle tait presque aussi silencieuse. Elle
put fournir quelques rves prouvant le caractre agressif de ses pratiques castratrices sur
son mari. Elle extriorisa cette poque ses dsirs de mort contre son pre et retrouva le
souvenir de ses obsessions d'tranglement. De cette poque aussi date la phobie qu'il ne
nous arrive un accident,
expression vidente d'un dsir de mort. Un peu plus tard, un autre progrs sensible
s'exprima sous une forme trs discrte : un changement dans l'expression verbale de la
rsistance ; elle ne disait plus : je ne veux pas parler , elle disait : je ne peux pas, je
ne sais pas ce qui m'empche de parler. Il tait certain qu'elle tait soumise un dbat
intrieur intense ; elle sortait de ses sances fatigue, frissonnante, tachycardique,
souvent couverte de sueur. A l'occasion d'un conflit actuel n de l'obligation pascale,
elle prit conscience de la similitude de sa rvolte contre
l'homme, Dieu et la Vierge Mre difie. Elle dit alors : Je hais la contrainte d'o
qu'elle vienne, d'un homme ou d'une femme. - Les injures que j'adresse la Vierge, je
les ai certainement penses propos de ma mre, mais je n'osais pas me les dire en moimme.

A cette poque elle fit un rve o la Vierge tait la fois reprsentative d'une
mre idale uniquement proccupe de son enfant, et d'une femme trs sexualise qui
le pre confessait sa foi.

Peu peu, l'orage s'apaise, en partie parce que le problme pascal, d'actualit
seulement pendant une priode trs limite, perd de son acuit, le temps de la
communion obligatoire tant pass, en partie aussi du fait des explications et
interprtations analytiques. Le transfert avait, ainsi que l'on pouvait s'en rendre compte
de tout petits signes, perdu beaucoup de son agressivit.






L'analyste tait d'abord un adversaire, contre qui l'on s'essayait toutes les
mesures de castration qui avaient si bien russi avec le mari, puis, quand le dsir de
possession pnienne devint conscient, ainsi que l'agressivit de castration concomitante,
le foss qui sparait tout homme de la malade se trouva en partie combl. L'homme
devenait un alli. La malade ne refusait plus de cooprer avec lui, elle disait : je veux
parler , mais se heurtait une force intrieure plus puissante que sa dtermination
consciente et contre laquelle elle luttait avec nergie et tnacit. Le rsultat pratique de
cette coopration n'tait peut-tre pas encore trs sensible, mais l'orientation des
rapports analyste-analyse tait diffrente et laissait prsager des dveloppements
ultrieurs. Au fond, il ne s'tait pass rien d'autre que cette rvlation du dsir du pnis,
et du sens de ce dsir. L'homme-analyste avait perdu ses caractres d'tre qui domine,
qui fait peur, qui se moque, du moins en partie. Il tait devenu bienveillant. Sans doute
tait-il toujours aussi interdit, puisqu'il tait dfendu de lui parler, mais les interdictions
du surmoi fminin infantile devenaient moins rigoureuses, en mme temps que
s'annonait une confusion significative entre l'imago analytique et celle d'une mre
accueillante. En voici la premire figuration onirique ; disons tout d'abord qu'elle fut
prcde d'un rve de rconciliation avec sa belle-mre qui s'tait oppose son
mariage et secondairement s'tait suicide au cours d'un accs dpressif, la belle-famille
de Rene la rendant indirectement responsable de cet accident. Mme X... me propose
d'aller avec elle remercier la vieille dame de tout ce qu'elle a fait pour moi - je suis trs
inquite car la vieille dame habite chez vous. Que va-t-elle dire, lorsqu'elle saura que je
viens chez vous. - Nous y allons. - C'est vous qui me recevez. - Nous avons une
conversation normale et non une sance d'analyse. - je suis trs contente.

Nous ne pouvons vous exposer ici le dtail de ses associations. Dans ce rve,
elle dsire s'identifier Mme X.... femme qui a su conserver son indpendance en
matire religieuse malgr son mariage avec le ministre d'un culte rpandu en France.

Quant l'image de l'analyste, elle est la fois celle d'un homme avec qui elle a
des relations normales et d'une mre qui se montre comprhensive et non plus
interdictrice. Il y a l au moins une indication de la double signification de la
reprsentation qu'elle se fait de l'analyste.

Moins d'un mois aprs la crise de Pques, son tat s'est grandement amlior.
Elle est heureuse au milieu des siens, se livre avec gaiet des travaux d'amnagement
dans son intrieur ; elle repeint tout neuf. Elle ne s'est jamais sentie aussi gaie ; ses
obsessions sont tout aussi nombreuses, mais elle n'en ressent plus aucune culpabilit.
Elle arrive assez facilement dominer sa rpugnance parler. Elle apporte une
multitude de documents que nous avons condenss plus haut et sent qu'elle est sur la






bonne voie. Un matriel plus directement reprsentatif des phases prgnitales
commence faire son apparition, comme dans ce rve o elle accepte de renoncer son
pnis noir pour devenir rellement femme. Elle rve : je suis sur la scne du
Chtelet, je ne sais pas mon rle et je dois sans cesse inventer. - je joue avec un homme
jeune. Le soir il y a une seconde reprsentation - je ne sais comment faire. - Entre les
deux, je vais aux toilettes et j'limine une quantit norme de matires fcales de forme
particulire. - je me sens soulage - je joue mieux. Tout ceci est trs clair, si l'on sait
que la situation de thtre tait une situation amoureuse ; que l'homme jeune symbolise
son mari et que les matires limines taient en forme de verge.

Mais puisque ce travail est centr sur l'tude des ractions de transfert et de leur sens,
ainsi que sur celles des modifications de la structure psychologique, autrement dit du
surmoi, revenons l'expos de rves qui, comme celui-l, montrent le pourquoi de cette
ambigut de l'imago masculine, qui est l'objet de pulsions agressives, puisqu'elle
possde la puissance phallique attribue par ailleurs la mre toute puissante.

A vrai dire, le rve que nous allons relater est un phantasme de rconciliation
avec la mre phallique ; il succde tous ceux au cours desquels Rene recevait la
puissance phallique des mains de l'analyste, ou, plus exactement, acqurait le droit la
recevoir en contrepartie de son sacrifice montaire ou anal. - je me retrouve avec mes
camarades. Certaines d'entre elles vont passer un examen et comme je n'ai pas mon
brevet, l'une d'elles me dit mchamment: Vous devriez concourir. Je refuse, puisque je
l'ai obtenu par quivalence. Notre Directrice me soutient. A ce moment, elle relve
brusquement ses jupes et je trouve qu'elle exagre. Elle a les jambes et les cuisses
entirement noires. Plus tard, je suis dans un jardin, une de mes collgues, que j'aime
beaucoup, me tend une branche de pommier en fleurs. Je la refuse en lui disant : J'aime
les longues tiges. Pour donner tout son sens ce rve, il est ncessaire de rapporter
avec assez de dtails les associations fournies. Le fait de n'avoir pas obtenu son diplme
par concours est pour elle un sujet de proccupations constantes, elle se sent en tat
d'infriorit et craint d'tre juge incapable, malgr tous les encouragements qu'on peut
lui apporter. La Directrice lui est trs favorable. Elle la soutient, l'encourage et lui
tmoigne de l'affection. Les cuisses noires voquent une affiche reprsentant une
danseuse de couleur, sur le tutu de qui un mauvais plaisant avait dessin un norme
phallus, de telle manire qu'il semblait appartenir l'artiste et, comme nous insistions un
peu pour essayer de retrouver la trace d'un traumatisme par vision
d'organes gnitaux, elle nous dit : Oui, ces jambes me font penser celles des chevaux
de la gendarmerie. Quand ils taient en rection, je me demandais ce qu'ils avaient, cela
m'intriguait - je ne me rappelle pas autre chose. Si... quand j'tais toute petite, je
m'amusait avec d'autres petites filles me mettre un petit btonnet dans la vulve. je ne






vois pas autre chose. " Ainsi se prcisait l'origine du dsir de possession pnienne, la
concrtisation par cet organe de toutes les possibilits de puissance.

Quant la deuxime partie du rve, au sens presque vident, elle provoque les
associations suivantes : la collgue est une femme aime par la malade, nergique,
droite et bonne comme l'infirmire amricaine, ; la branche de pommier voque une
chanson trs tendre du Pays du Sourire (une image montrant deux pigeons se
becquetant sur un pommier en fleurs) (souvenir d'enfance). Le fait que la tige ne soit pas
assez longue, la ramne une rflexion faite par elle au cours de son dernier rapport
sexuel. Elle dit son mari : Mais entre donc davantage. Ainsi la mre est, dans la
premire phase de ce long rve, adorne du pnis. Dans la seconde, la malade traduit
son dsappointement de ne recevoir, au milieu du jardin trs sombre, qu'une branche
symbolique insuffisante (le petit clitoris), mais ce rve se droule dans une atmosphre
douce et apaisante, le conflit tend se rsoudre et la dormeuse, si elle n'accepte pas
encore son tat de femme, connat une atmosphre d'apaisement. Mais aussi sans doute,
ce rve exprime-t-il sans angoisse le dsir de s'annexer librement le phallus de son mari,
mode de rsolution classique du complexe de castration fminine.

La dmonstration de cette confusion des images analytique et maternelle,

phalliques toutes deux, est objective dans ce rve de transfert franchement positif avec
encore une teinte de castration : je suis en sance chez vous. Un enfant de 7 8 ans est
prsent - Vous tes revtu d'une longue robe noire comme les mdecins de Molire,
mais sans chapeau pointu - Vous vous placez sur moi, comme pour me possder. Je
trouve cela tout naturel - Vous relevez alors votre robe et vous dites : mais parlez donc !
Voici quelques associations. La robe noire : celle des
mdecins de la comdie classique. Les clystres : quand j'avais 10 ans, je me laissais
administrer des lavements par des fillettes plus ges et j'en prouvais une vritable
volupt - Ma mre me donnait des lavements - D'ailleurs, elle portait toujours une robe
noire - Un rapport sexuel avec vous me semble normal - Quant au garonnet c'est mon
fils. Vous savez que constatant pendant les vacances son dsaccord avec sa jeune
femme et pensant qu'il tait d une nvrose provoque par mon ducation trop svre,
je lui ai avou que je suivais un traitement chez vous et tout le bien que j'en retirais. Ce
fut un trs dur sacrifice. Ainsi, elle ne peroit plus l'humiliation ressentie jusqu'alors
d'tre une femme. Il est remarquer que ses rapports sexuels se font sur un mode
prgnital. Il est aussi noter la surdtermination de son silence : Parler, pour elle,
quivalait bien une soumission sexuelle l'homme ou la mre masculinise,
quoiqu'il s'agisse d'une activit orale en elle-mme fortement culpabilise. Voici un trs
joli rve qui, malgr bien des incidences prgnitales orales, semble marquer une
tendance une volution dipienne normale : je suis sur les boulevards - Le roi
d'Angleterre passe en cortge avec sa femme au bras. Je lui parle et lui dis combien mon






fils est heureux de se trouver dans ce beau pays. Il me remercie et m'invite dner - Je
repars son bras - La reine s'est efface - Nous arrivons dans une petite maison - je me
trouve alors en prsence de laquais qui me montrent une desserte o se trouvent des
cristaux de forme varie. Ils m'invitent choisir une coupe. Je leur rponds que je n'en
ai pas envie - Puis je vais dans les communs et je me trouve en prsence de ma mre qui
fait sa lessive - Elle a ses cheveux blancs en dsordre - je lui dis : Mre, mettez vos
chaussures, il faut venir au banquet du Roi. A ce moment, une dame en manteau de
cour me dit de me hter. Elle a quelque chose d'important me dire. - Depuis ce rve,
j'prouve un trange sentiment de joie et de confiance. Je suis sre que j'arriverai bout
de ma maladie et mme de mes obsessions religieuses - Hier l'glise je me suis
avance jusqu'au matre-autel je n'avais pas fait cela depuis 20 ans car, il faut bien vous
le dire, j'ai eu des obsessions sexuelles, en ralit, depuis mon mariage.

Elle associe spontanment : le roi, c'est mon pre sous son uniforme, et vous,
par les traits - J'oubliais de vous dire : la porte de la petite maison, j'ai crois la Reine
Mary, elle m'a regarde d'un air svre. C'est ma mre quand elle est lointaine. La
maison est celle que j'ai toujours rv d'avoir dans les premires annes de mon
mariage, une maison claire, au milieu des fleurs, un mas provenal. Quant aux cristaux
que je ne veux pas accepter, ils me font penser une chanson comique sur les bonnets
des marmitons (il y en a de grands, de petits, de carrs, de pointus) que
j'ai entendu parodier avec des allusions sexuelles ; ils m'voquent l'ide d'un pnis - Ma
mre faisant la lessive me fait penser la faon dont je la considre maintenant - je
n'avais pas jusqu'ici peru combien elle s'tait dvoue pour nous tous et d'ailleurs, elle
a bien chang. - Elle me parat maintenant aussi bonne qu'elle me semblait mchante Aux dernires vacances, je l'ai vue s'puisant de travail afin que nous puissions nous
distraire. A la rflexion, c'est moi qui me suis modifie Elle a toujours 't comme cela,
seulement je souffrais tellement de ses mauvais cts que je
ne sentais plus ce qu'elle avait de bien ; je sais, et vous me l'avez fait dcouvrir, que je
l'aimais plus que tout, mais je ne pouvais supporter son autoritarisme et d plus je me
croyais dlaisse. Quant la femme au manteau de cour, c'est la fe des contes de mon
enfance.

J'insiste, ajoute-t-elle encore, sur l'impression de bonheur ineffable que j'ai ressentie
ce matin mon rveil, la vie s'ouvrait devant moi, toute lumineuse et calme, je n'avais
plus peur de rien - je sentais que j'tais comme les outres, ou tout au moins de la
manire dont j'imagine les autres - je ne demande qu' vivre heureuse dans mon
mnage, y tenir ma place, jouir de l'affection de mon mari et de celle de mes enfants.






Comme on le voit, ce rve semble indiquer que la malade s'engage sur la voie
d'un transfert positif gnitalis, et que s'ouvre une troisime phase pourrait-on dire de
l'analyse. Il est d'ailleurs contemporain de toute une srie de rves o elle semble
vouloir se dtourner avec horreur de toute manifestation agressive. Dans ce phantasme
en tout cas, sa mre n'est plus qu'un personnage qui s'efface, la vieille dame qui fait sa
lessive , l'pouse du roi d'Angleterre qui disparat au moment o elle prend le bras du
roi. Si elle peut avoir encore un aspect intimidant, la reine Mary, elle ne l'empche pas
d'entrer dans la maison. - Dans ce rve aussi, elle peut s'adresser au roi, lui dire des
choses aimables, et celui-ci lui octroie la place de la reine dans le cortge.

Ce rve semble bien montrer la naissance d'un dsir dipien positif. Elle
renonce la possession du pnis, elle accepte l'invitation du roi, dont elle sera l'oblige,
mais la persistance de pulsions prgnitales s'y traduit par l'invitation un repas ; les
rapports avec le roi sont d'ordre alimentaire. D'ailleurs le symbolisme du refus de la
coupe est 'videmment complexe, si la malade l'interprte spontanment comme la
traduction de son abandon de ses prtentions la puissance phallique en est-il bien ainsi
? N'est-ce pas un symbole du pnis creux , expression du dsir normal d'assimilation
du pnis de l'homme par une femme trs rceptive, comme certains analystes l'ont voulu
? L'intensit de la fixation maternelle est en tout cas indique par la ncessit qu'elle
prouve de conduire sa mre au banquet du prince.

L'analyse a continu progresser et le transfert positif ,,'est prcis avec ses

caractristiques d'dipe trs fortement prgnitalis, en mme temps qu'est sorti un
matriel plus rvlateur encore du paralllisme des ractions de la malade envers
l'homme et envers sa mre. Voici un rve choisi entre plusieurs autres. (Elle tait ce
jour-l en conflit avec sa mre, et ceci explique peut-tre, en partie, le caractre plus
spcialement sadique de ce matriel, en rponse au dchanement momentan de sa
propre agressivit.) Dans un souterrain, un homme me poursuit, j'ai peur - Il m'atteint
et essaie de m'trangler - A ce moment, mon mari m'a rveille car je me dbattais et
criais - L'homme c'est vous - Vous ne pouvez savoir combien je suis dpite d'avoir
vous le dire. Je me dfends, je me rvolte. Vous m'irritez avec votre silence, votre force,
comme ma mre; pourtant je pense continuellement vous. Je voudrais rompre l'analyse
plutt que de me trouver dans une situation aussi dangereuse, aussi humiliante : aimer
un homme qui se moque de vous, c'est se prostituer. La tentative d'tranglement me
suggre qu'enfant j'aurais tant dsir
prendre ma mre par le cou pour l'embrasser et la serrer de toutes mes forces, mais elle
ne me le permettait pas - Ah ce que je la hais - c'est vrai, je voulais aussi trangler mon
pre Elle prouve, dans ce rve, la peur d'tre traite par nous de la mme manire la






fois sadique et amoureuse dont, enfant, elle dsirait user avec sa mre, mais l'affect
agressif tait seul peru dans son obsession d'tranglement de son pre, labore l'ge
de 15 ans. Elle ajoute : Quand mon mari s'endort sans s'intresser moi, j'ai envie de
le tuer. Pendant la guerre, je couchais avec ma mre :
quand elle tait indiffrente, j'avais aussi envie de la tuer. Puis il lui revient en
mmoire une obsession de grand sadisme. - Essayons maintenant une interprtation
synthtique du transfert.

Le transfert que cette malade revit dans la situation analytique a volu de faon
progressive, mais non continue, c'est--dire avec des oscillations marques vers un tat
de confiance et de dtente qui contraste vigoureusement avec l'expression
essentiellement ngative qu'il prenait au dbut. Rsumons ce que nous en a appris
l'tude. Dans une premire phase et avant que ne ft devenu conscient le dsir de
possession phallique, l'attitude d'opposition tait, apparemment tout au moins,
entirement dirige contre l'homme. Non seulement elle avait, vis--vis de son analyste,
une conduite absolument analogue celle qu'elle avait envers son mari, mais ce fut la
fin de cette phase du traitement qu'elle prit pleinement connaissance de son agressivit
pour son pre et son mdecin. En ralit, ces sentiments hostiles, spontanment
irrductibles, quelle que soit la conduite de l'homme, taient n'en pas douter non
seulement la rsultante de la position psychologique de la malade en face du couple
parental, c'est--dire de son identification son pre et de l'inversion dipienne, mais
encore d'un transfert, si l'on peut s'exprimer ainsi, des affects agressifs primitivement
prouvs l'gard de la mre, notion d'ailleurs parfaitement classique et maintes fois
objective. Nous croyons l'avoir suffisamment dmontr dans cette observation. Il nous
a paru intressant de noter qu'en mme temps que se traduisait dans des rves le dsir
d'une identification au pre (recevoir de l'analyste des chaussures qui feraient d'elle un
tre phallique), la svrit de la censure, expression du pouvoir inhibiteur du surmoi
fminin infantile, allait s'attnuant ; elle pouvait alors reconnatre, dans les injures
adresses la Vierge Mre, les vocables, qu'enfant, elle n'avait jamais os se permettre
de penser clairement, mme en son for intrieur, l'gard de sa mre relle pour ne citer
qu'un exemple. Ce n'est, pensons-nous, qu'en ne perdant pas de vue la ralit d'une
projection sur l'analyste, et d'une manire plus gnrale sur l'homme avec qui de telles
malades nouent des relations intimes, de l'agressivit primordiale anti-maternelle, que
l'on peut comprendre un tel rsultat. La prise de conscience du dsir de castration du
mdecin quivaut en outre une dculpabilisation de l'agressivit vis--vis de la mre
phallique, si, par ailleurs, la remmoration du dsir de possession phallique permet une
identification au pre, porteur du pnis. Nous ne nous tendrons pas davantage sur
l'aspect ngatif du transfert de Rene, auquel une grande partie de cet expos a t
consacre, et que nous ne venons de rsumer brivement ici que pour montrer que
l'ambigut de l'imago analytique apparat tout aussi bien dans l'analyse de l'aspect






ngatif que de l'aspect positif du transfert de la malade. Nous ne voulons pas revenir sur
la condensation onirique du personnage du mdecin et de la mre, laquelle nous avons
dj suffisamment fait allusion, mais nous voudrions faire ressortir, en terminant cet
essai d'analyse du transfert, combien, mme lorsque ces images sont dissocies et
qu'une orientation dipienne et personnelle du transfert semble se dessiner, la raction
de la patiente l'gard de l'homme est module sur le schme de ses relations avec sa
mre. Je n'ai videmment jamais prouv dit-elle, avec mon mari, le bonheur parfait
que me donne la compagnie des femmes qui m'aiment et que j'admire, mais je suis par
rapport vous deux dans une situation
analogue celle o je me trouve avant de rencontrer ma mre, que je crains toujours de
trouver hostile. Je pense ce que sera l'expression de votre visage : si je le trouve
ouvert, je me sens mieux, je deviens gaie ; s'il me semble renferm, je me sens
immdiatement devenir mchante et hostile, tout comme avec ma mre, quand elle a
son air svre et froid. Cela est d'ailleurs maintenant moins net. je sens que vous tes
bon, que je puis foncirement compter sur vous, mais ce sentiment amoureux que
j'prouve m'effraie toujours.

Ainsi, l'on saisit sur le vif, dans le concret de la vie, ce qui rend impossible
cette malade une issue satisfaisante de sa libido vers un objet htrosexuel, L'homme
porteur du pnis est l'image vivante de la mauvaise mre qui frustre et domine toujours,
quelle que soit son attitude relle, et sans doute tant que ne sont pas exposes et
acceptes les pulsions orales de destruction phallique. Il rsulte de ceci que toute
situation de transfert amoureux est ressentie comme minemment angoissante, tant du
fait de la peur qu'une telle situation, correspondant un abandon de la fixation
maternelle, ne peut manquer de provoquer que - et cela nous apparait comme la source
essentielle de l'angoisse - de ce qu'une telle ventualit comporte d'agressivit et, en
fonction de la loi du talion, de crainte, de destruction, de par la transposition sur le
pnis, des apptences orales, amoureuses et destructives du sein maternel. - Cette
analogie entre sein et. pnis est ici objective par la localisation pectorale du phantasme
de virilisation qui nous parait trs significative. Mais, si la malade, spontanment,
exprime l'analogie qu'elle tablit entre les deux formes
de puissance masculine et maternelle, elle s'oppose une interprtation visant
souligner cette correspondance par une rationalisation de ce genre De toute faon, il
s'agit d'un appendice.

L'analyse des pulsions orales s'est toujours heurte une vive rsistance. La
malade a nanmoins soulign elle-mme la signification d'un apptit qu'elle n'a jamais
pu modrer, malgr les exigences dittiques d'un embonpoint important. Quant je me
limite J'prouve une angoisse insurmontable. Elle a bien rapproch de ce symptme,






les visions d'organes gnitaux masculins qui, si souvent, lui masquent la vue de l'hostie;
mais elle a fait de ce rapprochement une sorte de suggestion de l'analyse, tout en se
rappelant ce propos deux obsessions de son enfance : Quand j'allais communier,
j'tais obsde la journe durant par la crainte de profaner une parcelle de l'hostie, en la
dposant sur un objet que ma bouche pouvait toucher ; aussi je l'avalais gloutonnement,
d'un seul coup. Ici, la pulsion agressive infiltrait le moyen de dfense. Le mme jour,
elle retardait l'exonration fcale dans la crainte que le Corps du Christ soit abandonn,
mlang aux excrments ; mais elle sent maintenant qu'elle prouvait une sorte de joie
en y pensant. Ce sadisme anal, dont elle comprend bien la signification, a pu tre plus
facilement analys, elle sent toute la puissance agressive de ses interjections
scatologiques l'gard de Dieu, de la Vierge, de sa mre, de son mdecin. Signalons
ce sujet l'obsession suivante, qu'elle rapproche du jeu du lavement : Quand le prtre
dit : Ouvrez vos curs ", je pense : " Ouvre ton anus... " , Satisfaction symbolique de
son rotisme passif anal.

Malgr le caractre incomplet de son analyse, l'amlioration de Rene est

importante : ses rapports affectifs se sont extrmement dtendus, elle semble capable
d'aimer son mari, sur un mode moins captatif, elle le souhaite plus viril. Sa mre aussi
bnficie de son changement : elle la trouve dvoue, malgr sa rudesse et s'efforce de
la comprendre. Elle a encore des retours d'agressivit violente, mais ils durent peu. De
plus elle donne son fils, Andr, une ducation librale, sait jouer avec lui et lui parler
l'occasion de problmes sexuels. Vis--vis de son fils an, elle est vritablement
maternelle, et n'a pas hsit lui parler d'un traitement analytique, pour corriger une
attitude nvrotique dont elle se sent responsable, sans prouver pour cela de sentiment
pathologique de culpabilit. - Le plus habituellement, elle se sent trs heureuse, s'efforce
d'tre objective. Ses obsessions religieuses sont extrmement rares ; elle accueille avec
indiffrence ces penses, qui lui traversent l'esprit en clair sans provoquer de
ractions affectives. Cette acceptation, sans angoisse, de la survivance du phnomne
obsessionnel, jointe ses possibilits nouvelles de projections libidinales au dehors,
nous semble confrer l'amlioration actuelle un caractre de stabilit au moins
relative.
CONCLUSIONS.
Avant d'insister sur le point particulier qui nous a amen vous prsenter ce travail, il
nous parat ncessaire de condenser en quelques lignes les donnes de cette observation,
donnes qui, pour un certain nombre d'entre elles tout au moins, ont t retrouves dans
plusieurs autres observations de nvrose obsessionnelle fminine. - Toutes ces malades
ont ragi de faon identique la situation familiale. Elles sont restes fixes leur mre,






sur un mode infantile, et si elles semblent avoir renvers leur complexe d'dipe et avoir
pris une position homosexuelle, il faut bien insister sur le fait que celle-ci ne
s'accompagne gure de phantasmes de possession gnitale, ou que s'il en est ainsi, ces
phantasmes revtent un caractre sadique nettement accus. Cette fixation maternelle,
dfinie comme il vient d'tre dit, s'accompagne de ractions agressives contre toute
personne susceptible de s'immiscer dans le couple mre-fille et d'altrer l'intgrit du
pacte unissant la fille et la mre. Tel est le cas des autres
enfants par exemple. Ce fait absolument constant n'est pas particulier d'ailleurs la
nvrose obsessionnelle. Mais il revt dans ces cas des caractristiques spciales d'absolu
et de violence. D'autre part, les relations l'intrieur du couple mre-fille se dveloppent
sur un plan sado-masochique accentu. L'ambivalence l'gard de la mre est extrme
et si l'analyse retrouve aisment une tendance une soumission aveugle l'objet
maternel, elle met aussi facilement en vidence une rvolte continuelle contre ce mme
objet : rvolte suscite aussi bien par les frustrations affectives que la mre ne peut
manquer d'imposer la fille, que par les limitations instinctuelles qu'en tant
qu'ducatrice elle n'a pu lui viter. Quant au pre, il est videmment l'un des lments
principaux appels rompre l'unit de cette liaison et, comme tel, soulve l'agressivit
de l'enfant. Mais les rapports du pre et de sa fille sont videmment infiniment plus
complexes que ne le comporterait une simple rivalit auprs d'un objet d'amour
commun : la mre. Quelle qu'ait t l'importance de la fixation la mre, la fille fut, un
temps au moins, attire par son pre, et
l'analyse explicite rgulirement une bauche d'attrait pour le pre. Si faible qu'il ait t,
il n'en a pas moins exist. Parfois mme, le pre semble avoir jou un rle important
dans le dterminisme d'une rgression de la libido des positions infantiles, non encore
abandonnes franchement. Il fut pour son enfant un personnage particulirement
terrifiant et sadique comme dans une observation laquelle nous aurions voulu faire
allusion ; mais mme dans cette observation, et a fortiori dans les autres, il semble bien
que le non-dgagement de la libido de ses investissements prgnitaux soit responsable
d'un chec de l'dipe. L'enfant transfrant en bloc sur le pre les lments
fondamentaux de son complexe maternel mal liquid, devait se heurter, dans ce nouveau
type de relation, aux mmes difficults que dans sa liaison avec son premier objet
libidinal. Elle revient la fixation la mre en fonction de l'interdiction, de la crainte du
grand pnis, et de son effraction biologique, mais surtout, nous semble-t-il, de
l'angoisse du retournement sur elle de ses propres pulsions sadiques, orales et anales,
primitivement diriges contre la mre et secondairement transfres sur le pre. Quant
aux relations que ces malades ont avec leur partenaire quand elles arrivent se marier,
elles sont videmment toutes particulires et sont tablies sur un schme qui rappelle
ce point celui de leur complexe maternel que l'on a pu crire qu'elles recherchaient une
mre dans le mariage et que celui-ci ne correspondait pas autant qu'on pourrait le penser
un choix htrosexuel. Pourtant, il existe une






diffrence fondamentale entre la relation conjugale et la liaison infantile de la mre la
fille. Alors qu'il existe de bonnes mres , dans l'histoire de ces malades, il n'existe
pas de bons maris , nous voulons dire par l que quelle que soit la perfection de la
castration que leur compagnon accepte, il ne se produit jamais leur gard, dans la
nvrose obsessionnelle fminine tout au moins, ce dblocage affectif, qui ralise la
projection d'un courant libidinal objectal violent, comme cela se voit dans les relations
qu'elles peuvent avoir avec une femme comprhensive. L'acceptation du pnis et
l'atteinte de l'orgasme ne changent rien la situation, car le rapport sexuel, quelle que
soit sa modalit, est un vritable acte de castration. Elles dveloppent vis--vis de leurs
compagnons une attitude sans nul doute analogue celle qu'elles ont eue envers leur
pre, mais comme cette attitude est au fond sous-tendue par leur complexe ngatif
d'activit sadique envers la mre et que leur essai d'dipe positif a t fort bref et trs
hsitant, il apparat qu'elles ont dans leur comportement matrimonial l'ensemble des
attitudes vcues l'gard de la mre hostile et redoute, c'est- -dire qu'elles sont
partages entre un sentiment de besoin et de dpendance absolus et une rvolte et une
haine continuelles. Ragissant toute frustration venant d'eux avec la mme violence
anxieuse qu' toute manifestation de dsintrt venant d'elle, elles prouvent tout
instant un besoin parallle de destruction.

Lorsque l'analyse fait revivre ces malades le dsir profondment refoul de

l'attaque sexuelle de la part de l'homme ou du pre, l'on s'aperoit, fait en apparence
paradoxal comme nous l'avons signal dans l'observation de Rene, que le matriel
fourni est tout orient par la crainte d'une rponse agressive de la mre en fonction de
l'attaque agressive primaire de la fille contre elle. Nous aurions voulu, ici, donner les
documents relatifs trois autres observations de nvrose obsessionnelle fminine, qui
nous ont paru tout fait dmonstratifs de l'existence d'une situation complexuelle de ce
genre, mais le manque de temps nous empche de les relater.

On conoit que, dans ces conditions, la position de l'analyste masculin, en face

de telles malades, soit extrmement difficile. Il est classique de dire que la
normalisation des rapports analyste-analys, et donc la gurison, ne peut se produire que
si l'analyste est accept par l'inconscient de la malade comme une image fminine et
maternelle. Il ne nous a pas sembl qu'il en soit ainsi, mais, bien au contraire, qu'il est
invitable que de prime
abord l'imago analytique soit assimile une imago paternelle, avec tout ce que ceci
comporte d'opposition et d'agressivit.

Nous avons assez longuement insist en relatant l'observation de Rene sur

toutes les raisons qui rendent difficile le contact du mdecin et de sa malade.






Si nous avons rapport en dtail tous ces documents cliniques c'est que leur
rappel nous a sembl indispensable la comprhension de l'volution de la situation de
transfert et des modifications corrlatives de l'quilibre intrapsychique qu'elle
dtermine. Dans toutes ces observations, le transfert nous a paru voluer favorablement
en mme temps que le dsir de possession phallique tait rendu conscient. Cette
volution, pour si prcisment commenante qu'elle soit, ce moment, 9 t lentement
progressive. L'analyste est devenu peu peu celui qui sait, qui comprend, qui permet, ce
qui ne veut pas dire qu'il lui ait t impossible de jouer, partir de cette phase du
traitement, son rle fondamental de partenaire sur lequel on peut projeter tout ce que
l'on sent. Autrement dit, il se produit ici ce que nous avons constat chez les obsds
masculins : il s'tablit entre le sujet et son mdecin une coopration de base, un accord
indiscut, qui s'accommode fort bien de l'extriorisation de toutes les manifestations
possibles d'agressivit ou d'amour. L'opposition irrductible qui sparait ces femmes du
thrapeute masculin et qui se traduisait par les formes les plus varies de rsistance,
silences ou rationalisations plus ou moins faciles dtruire et sans cesse renaissantes,
tombent alors sans prjudice de la disparition de tous les manquements la discipline
du traitement qui leur sont coutumiers. L'acceptation, par elles, de la racine profonde de
leur
hostilit anti-masculine, produit donc un double effet clinique : elle rend, d'une part,
inutile l'emploi de moyens dtourns propres manifester une opposition dont elles
ignorent elles-mmes le motif fondamental, d'autre part, elle affirme le sentiment d'une
comprhension singulire entre les deux participants du dialogue analytique. La mise
jour de ce phantasme de virilisation ne va pas videmment sans difficult, comme bien
l'on pense ; il est extrmement culpabilis et sans doute la dculpabilisation, par la
venue la conscience, mais aussi par l'aveu, joue-t-elle un rle important dans
l'tablissement de cette sorte de relation de comprhension exceptionnelle sentie par
l'analyse. Le dsir de possession phallique et celui concomitant de castration de
l'analyste ne se dissimulent pas uniquement derrire les rsistances habituelles. Souvent,
c'est un rve de transfert en apparence trs positif et trs sexualis, qui contient un tout
petit dtail rvlateur du dsir de castration. Les rves de rapprochement sexuel
apparaissant trs prcocement sont, dans les cas de nvrose obsessionnelle, trs suspects
de n'tre que des phantasmes de ce type. En voici un exemple : Ds les premiers mois
de son traitement, Nicole fait des rves multiples de rapports sexuels avec son mdecin.
Or plusieurs mois aprs, elle apporte une fois de plus un rve analogue. Vous tes
mon fianc, nous retournons chez moi - Il pleut, vous me mettez votre manteau sur les
paules - Nous arrivons la maison - Nous entrons - Ma mre est l, elle nous accueille
avec un bon sourire. L'envie du pnis tait symbolise par le dsir de recevoir ou de
voler ce vtement - dsir qui tait galement formul dans ses premiers rves et qu'elle
avait dissimul. C'est galement le cas de Jeanne, qui entre dans la srie des phantasmes
de virilisation par la prise de conscience de sa fixation sa mre et de son






comportement masculin l'gard de celle-ci, en mme temps que par l'analyse
ininterrompue de ses formes de rsistance. Elle rve ; je me trouve dans votre
appartement o je suis venue vivre avec vous - J'y remplace la personne -ge que j'y
vois quelquefois. Au fond, je suis l parce que j'ai un
sentiment pour vous. Il ne faut surtout pas que ma mre le sache. Vous avez aux pieds
des pantoufles troues, on voit vos gros orteils. Mon premier soin sera de boucher ces
trous. Le dsir de castration est ici indiqu par le dessein de fermer les pantoufles.

Quelle que soit la faon dont se manifeste l'envie du pnis, les rves des malades
nous renseignent largement sur la signification de leur dsir de possession phallique.
Leurs phantasmes sont sous-tendus par leur dsir de possession sadique de leur mre,
ou, de faon plus attnue, par leur besoin d'imposer celle-ci un renversement de la
situation infantile : de domines, elles veulent devenir dominatrices. Nicole, au
lendemain du rve du manteau, apporte la fantaisie suivante: je suis un homme, je
pntre dans la chambre d'une jeune fille, qui ressemble ma mre. Je la tue parce
qu'elle me rsiste , et elle s'tend longuement sur ce que serait son attitude si elle tait
un homme. Jeanne rve plus simplement qu'elle s'affranchit de la tutelle de sa mre. Je
suis dans la salle de bains, avec un mdecin (vous) qui me faites une analyse d'urines,
ma mre est dans la chambre ct et dit qu'elle fera cesser l'analyse. je sors furieuse et
je lui affirme que, quoi qu'il arrive, je poursuivrai l'analyse autant qu'il le faudra. Ds
lors, dans de multiples fantaisies oniriques, elle compare sa mre une femme de
mnage sale et laide, qu'elle mprise et commande, et dans d'autres fantaisies encore,
elle imagine que je suis mari -une femme vulgaire, triste et mal habille comme elle,
qu'elle n'ose supplanter ou tout au moins elle ne l'avoue pas facilement. En mme
temps, sur le plan concret, cette jeune fille qui jusque-l ne pouvait quitter sa mre un
seul instant, ni de jour ni de nuit, allait seule Paris et suivait des cours de dessin sans
aucune surveillance maternelle. Elle continue depuis plus de deux mois. videmment,
elle est loin d'tre gurie. Il faut ajouter que, comme dans le cas de Rene, le matriel
prgnital fait maintenant son apparition aussi bien sur le plan anal qu'oral.

Ainsi, la prise de conscience de l'envie du pnis dtermine concurremment,

d'une part des modifications du transfert dans un sens favorable au contact affectif de
l'analyste et de l'analyse, d'autre part un flchissement parallle de la rigueur du surmoi
fminin infantile. Nous avons pu justifier cette proposition de faon plus explicite en
vous relatant l'observation de Rene, mais dans les cas de Jeanne et de Nicole, auxquels
nous n'avons pu que faire allusion dans ces conclusions, cette double consquence de la
prise de conscience de l'envie du pnis ne s'y est pas montre aussi nette. Telles sont les
constatations de la clinique, mais pouvons-nous aller plus loin et nous reprsenter mieux
pourquoi ces deux phnomnes - amlioration du transfert et flchissement de la
svrit du surmoi fminin infantile - sont lies et aussi comment, partir d'une






identification sur un mode rgressif l'homme considr comme sadique, il sera
possible ces malades de passer une identification fminine passive cette fois,
l'analyste demeurant le support de ces deux identifications ? La seule observation de
Rene peut nous donner une ide de cette volution. Dans le cas particulier de Rene,
une sorte de confusion est matrialise dans les rves entre la reprsentation qu'elle se
fait d'un analyste lgrement dsexualis et d'une imago maternelle bienveillante : aprs
que s'est relche l'treinte du surmoi fminin infantile, l'imago analytique qui avait
servi de base une identification masculine sadique et avait pu, de ce fait, permettre
l'extriorisation de l'agressivit contre la mre en fonction du sentiment de puissance
phallique qu'une telle identification comportait, est ressentie par l'inconscient comme
analogue celle d'une mre de plus en plus dsarme et bienveillante. C'est ce
moment, mais ce moment seulement, que l'on peut dire que l'inconscient de la malade
s'empare de la personnalit de l'analyste comme de celle d'une bonne mre. Les malades
tmoignent de cette volution qui s'accompagne d'un sentiment spontan de
dplacement du problme intrieur. Elles ne se confient plus leur mre, mais leur
analyste. Jeanne dira par exemple : Je dois tout vous
dire - autrement, j'ai de l'angoisse et je me le reproche - je ne peux plus vous mentir,
alors que je ne dis plus rien ma mre. Nicole redoute de manquer une sance, parce
qu'elle se sent dans un tat de malaise et de faute latents, qui l'oblige rpter ses
manies expiatoires. Et surtout, comme le montre l'observation de Rene, l'image
maternelle onirique change de caractre. Mre hostile, adversaire de la malade, soutenue
par son analyste, elle devient comprhensive et gnreuse jusqu'au moment o cette
nouvelle incarnation de la mre se confond avec l'imago analytique. C'est du fait de
cette confusion qu'une identification fminine peut se faire sur la personne d'un analyste
masculin. Une dissociation des images confondues semble alors possible comme dans le
rve du roi, o la personne du pre puissant, mais affectueux, est distincte de celle de la
mre dvoue et faible. Une telle opration ne suppose-t-elle pas qu'en retrouvant son
agressivit antimasculine et son dsir de castration de l'homme, la malade revit en
mme temps ses pulsions sadiques contre ses deux parents ? Ce serait en ce sens que
l'on aurait raison de dire que l'analyste cet apprhend d'emble comme une mre ; mais
nous croyons plus conforme aux faits de distinguer, dans l'analyse de ces transferts
complexes, une phase o la malade se heurte l'homme avec la totalit des projections
agressives que cela comporte, avant de l'utiliser contre la mauvaise mre et de
s'identifier secondairement lui, comme une gnitrice favorable, qui, dtruisant tous
les tabous de la petite enfance, permettra une volution libidinale normale. Nous avons
t frapp du pouvoir dynamique d'une identification masculine, rgressive, chez tous
les obsds : Qu'un obsd masculin reoive le phallus sur un mode passif qui satisfasse
son rotisme cloacal, ou qu'une fille se l'annexe sur un mode agressif actif, le rsultat
final de cette opration est toujours une diminution de la rigueur du surmoi fminin
infantile, l'imago maternelle souvent phallique perdant son caractre coercitif et
dominateur.






Peut-on d'ailleurs limiter le rle du transfert homosexuel de l'obsd masculin
la rduction de la seule ambivalence envers le pre ? Nous ne le croyons pas, des
observations nouvelles nous ayant montr que la pntration active du pnis tait
ressentie comme une vritable viscration, l'imago maternelle y tant vraiment
dvorante, en talion d'un dsir de destruction globale par manducation ; nous pensons
que la rduction des exigences du surmoi maternel infantile ressort, l encore, d'une
liquidation du conflit avec une imago analytique ambigu.

Les faits tudis dans ce travail sont bien connus, et depuis longtemps. Peut-tre
pourtant n'tait-il pas absolument inutile de revenir sur l'intrt thrapeutique de la prise
de conscience de l'envie du pnis dans le cas particulier de la nvrose obsessionnelle
fminine et de montrer comment se traduit, concrtement, dans la vie et dans le
transfert, mais de faon souvent peu apparente de prime abord, la projection sur
l'homme de l'ensemble du complexe maternel et en fin de compte des pulsions sadiques
primitivement diriges contre la mre.






JEKELS, L. ET AL (1949) TRANSFERENCE AND LOVE. PSYCHOANAL. Q.,
18:325 (PAQ)

TRANSFERENCE AND LOVE

LUDWIG JEKELS, M.D. and EDMUND BERGLER, M.D.

'The greatest difficulties lie precisely

where we are not looking for them.'
Goethe

THE MIRACLE OF OBJECT CATHEXIS

'Narcissistic or ego libido seems to be the great reservoir from which the object cathexes
are sent out and into which they are withdrawn once more; the narcissistic libidinal
cathexis of the ego is the original state of things, realized in earliest childhood, and is
merely screened by the later extrusions of libido, but in essentials persists behind
them.'1
This statement of Freud raises a number of questions. That the ego relinquishes a part
of its libido in favor of an alien ego is anything but a matter of course which would
make superfluous inquiry into basic causes; rather is it a miracle which urgently
requires explanation. Why does the ego act in this manner? What are its motives?
Does it gain advantages by this processas seems very likelyand if so, what
advantages?
As far as we know, there is in psychoanalytic literature only one direct clue to this
puzzle: Freud2 says that the ego employs object cathexis in order to avoid an increased
damming-up of the libido in the ego, which might be experienced as unpleasant. This
explanation cannot be denied a certain degree of correctness. It is our purpose to
investigate beyond this, and to seek the psychological motives which may explain this
miracle of object cathexis which is ordinarily taken so much as a matter of course.

Read before the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, November 8, 1933. First published in
Imago, XX, 1934, pp. 531.
Translated by HENRY ALDEN BUNKER, M.D.






1Freud: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. (Trans. by James Strachey.) London:
Imago Publishing Co., Ltd., 1949, p. 95.
2Freud: On Narcissism: An Introduction. Coll. Papers, IV.
- 325 THE WISH TO BE LOVED
A forty-year-old married woman made a confession to her analyst which was very
painful for her to make because it conflicted with her moral standards.3 During the
following session she told the doctor between sobs: 'Yesterday evening I had the
feeling that you had deserted me. I felt that I no longer had you, that I didn't know
where you were, that I was not good enough for you.' Every analyst can cite an
abundance of similar examples. The patient's reaction leaves no doubt that the
substance of her fear is that she may be deserted by her analyst who represents her
superego. This fear of being separated from one's superego is rightly interpreted in
psychoanalysis as the fear of the threatened loss of love. The narcissistic identification
with the analyst4 doubtless also serves to prevent fear of loss of love. From the
frequency with which a patient repeats the doctor's views almost verbatim without any
recollection of their source, this unconscious plagiarism in analysis, this identification,
is to be regarded as a defense against anxiety, that is, as a desire to be loved, which may
be formulated: 'I am like you, and since you love yourself, you must love me also'.
Beside this fear of loss of love, we must also note that this anxiety is almost always
unequivocally expressed by the idea of separation in space. It scarcely requires more
precise observation to establish this.
This state of affairs deserves attention all the more in that Freud, in The Problem of
Anxiety, describes anxiety as the reaction to a loss, to a separation. According to Freud,
the anxiety of infants, and young children no less, has as its sole condition the missing
or loss of the object. This object toward which longing is directed and whose absence
causes anxiety is, according to prevailing opinion, the beloved and yearned-for mother,
or her substitute. The child is believed to experience this for an economic reason, as a
consequence of the increase in tension arising out of need. This explanation is based
upon

3Jekels, Ludwig: Das Schuldgefhl. Psa. Bewegung, IV, 1932, p. 345.

4Bergler, Edmund: Das Plagiat. Psa. Bewegung, IV, 1932. (See fifteenth and sixteenth
forms of unconscious plagiarism.)
- 326 the fact that the presence of an externally perceived object can end the danger implicit
in the situation.






This summary provides us with a framework for the detailed analysis of the psychic
experience, through the minute observation of which we hope to gain an understanding
of object relationship in its earliest beginnings. It is our conclusion that spatial
separation as an expression of anxiety is basedfar beyond the object-libidinal
relationship to the motherfundamentally upon the feeling of the threat to narcissistic
unity. One corroboration of this is the fact that feelings of guilt and anxiety have their
source in not being loved by the superego which is the fear of being unloved. This
brings us directly to the problem of love. In order, however, to throw light upon this
phenomenon in its complete psychological sense, it is essential to consider first the
structure and function of the superego.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUPEREGO
The modifications which the concept of the superego has undergone since its
formulation clearly mirror the development of the freudian instinct psychology. This
'stage of the ego' was discovered at a time when the libido alone was recognized, and
the ego instincts seemed in no way demonstrable. This differentiation in the ego was
then called the ego ideal: 'Man does not want to forgo the narcissistic completeness of
childhood, and when he cannot hold on to it he tries to regain it in the new form of
the ego ideal.'5 Seven years later it was conceived of as ' the sum of all the
restrictions to which the ego is supposed to submit'.6 Following replacement of this
instinct dualism by the antithesis of Eros and Thanatos, and to the extent to which in
general the importance of aggression was increasingly taken into account, there
occurred a shift, in favor of the latter, in the conception of the content and character of
the institution now called superego, till the current degree of

5Freud: On Narcissism: An Introduction. Coll. Papers, IV.

6Freud: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. New York: Liveright
Publishing Co., 1940.
7Freud: New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York: W. W. Norton &
Co., Inc., 1933, pp. 8990.
8Freud: New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York: W. W. Norton &
Co., Inc., 1933, pp. 9293.
- 327 exclusiveness was reached: 'The superego seems to have made a one-sided selection, to
have chosen only the harshness and severity of the parents, their preventive and punitive
functions, while their loving care is not taken up and continued by it'.7 This superego,
however, retained also the character and the function of the former ego ideal: 'It is also
the vehicle of the ego ideal, by which the ego measures itself, toward which it strives,
and whose demands for ever-increasing perfection it is always striving to fulfil. No






doubt this ego ideal is a precipitation of the old idea of the parents, an expression of the
admiration which the child felt for the perfection which it at that time ascribed to
them.'8
Despite these definite statements, there exists considerable confusion, as a survey of the
literature shows. Nunberg, for example, states: 'If, furthermore, the ego ideal is
supposed to be a replica of the loved objects in the ego, and the superego an image of
the hated and feared objects, how is it that these two concepts were confused, and used
interchangeably?'9
We believe that, with the concept of the struggle between Eros and Thanatos which we
here use, Freud's view of the superego will gain in clarity and sharpness by a precise
understanding of details, especially in the relationship between superego and ego ideal.
We conceive the ego ideal to be a 'neutral zone', lying between two countries. We
believe further that, just as in war every effort is made by neighboring belligerents to
occupy at the outset any neutral strip of land, here too the possession of the ego ideal is
the real goal and object of the seesaw struggle between the two great opponents, Eros
and Thanatos. This conception of the neutral character of the ego ideal is, in our view, a
very gradual development, traversing a number of preliminary stages. In every state of
this development we find the two basic drives to be at work, and from this point of

9Nunberg, Herman: Allgemeine Neurosenlehre auf Psychoanalytischer Grundlage.

Bern: Hans Huber Verlag, 1932, p. 124.
- 328 view one may, very schematically, speak of two roots of ego ideal development. One of
these consists of the attempt of the ego to redirect upon objects the aggression of the
death instinct, which is aimed against the ego, whereby these objects become something
to be feared. There is thus an attempted exchange of an inner for a projected external
danger which, however, miscarries. This consummation of the instinct of destruction is
parried by Eros by the incorporation of these fearsome objects into the ego, where they
become the subject of one's own narcissism.
The following process may be regarded as the second root. The child's feeling of
omnipotence is undermined by the demands of external reality, such as hunger,
weaning, toilet training. After a series of unsuccessful attempts to restore its feeling of
omnipotence, the child is faced with the alternative of relinquishing it or of maintaining
it at the price of a compromise. Such a compromise is described by Freud: 'We may
say that the one has set up an ideal in himself To this ideal ego is now directed the
self-love which the real ego enjoyed in childhood. The narcissism seems to be now
displaced on to this new ideal ego, which, like the infantile ego, deems itself the
possessor of all perfections. As always where the libido is concerned, here again man
has shown himself incapable of giving up a gratification he has once enjoyed. He is not






willing to forgo his narcissistic perfection in his childhood; and if, as he develops, he is
disturbed by the admonitions of others and his own critical judgment is awakened, he
seeks to recover the early perfection, thus wrested from him, in the new form of an ego
ideal.'10
If Eros were to succeed in this defense against Thanatos through setting up the ego
ideal, this would be exclusively the place of love, which in reality it is not. Thanatos
does not admit defeat, but on the contrary sharpens this weapon which Eros has created.
It is well known that the formation of an ideal is based upon identifications which begin
very early and are demonstrable at all stages of organization. We know,

10Freud: On Narcissism: An Introduction, Coll. Papers, IV. p. 51.

- 329 however, that desexualization runs parallel with every identification.
Desexualization, which is the achievement of Thanatos, is a subject hitherto little
touched upon by psychoanalysis. Desexualization is commonly considered equivalent
to sublimationincorrectly so, in our opinion, because desexualization is more
inclusive, and sublimation a special case of desexualization. The latter we imagine as a
continual process, following the libido like its shadow, a process active in all stages of
its development. Under the influence of the destructive instinct, the ego tries in the
pregenital stages to preserve the oral, anal, and urethral functions from sexual
amphimixis, and to change them into pure ego functionsingestion, intestinal and
urinary excretions. Even here, as we know, only a partial success is attained, one
completely denied the ego in the phallic-genital stage. This is comprehensible when we
reflect that the genital does not possess any ego function and only serves the sexual one.
Thus desexualizationas is proven by the latent period in which it happenswould
equal an extinction of sexuality altogether, would mean throwing out the baby with the
bath water.
It is well known that neurosis leads to the opposite result: the sexualization of the
functions of the ego. But as far as the phallic-genital phase is concerned, sexualization,
usually occurring after the termination of the latent period, is subjected to a renewed
desexualization by the neurotic process (impotence, frigidity). The ego's attempts at
desexualization are crowned with complete success only after the resolution of the
dipus complex because desexualization here concerns the organ specific to, and
exclusively serving, sexuality; also perhaps after so many unsuccessful attempts, an
occasional resigned giving-over of attempts to satisfy the libido directly may supervene.
All the preceding explanations, especially with reference to the developmental history
of the ego ideal, its derivation from the process of identification, and the attendant
desexualization, serve to support the conception of the ego ideal as a neutral zone. We






believe that with this statement, and with the arguments set forth to prove it, we have
come very close to one of the problems

11Freud: The Ego and the Id. London: Hogarth Press, 1927, pp. 6162.
- 330 stated by Freud which gives a more general and deeper meaning to our views. We refer
to that much discussed and variously commented upon passage in The Ego and the Id,
in which there is given a hypothetical explanation of the direct change (independent of
the behavior of the object) of love into hate, as, for example, in cases of paranoia
persecutoria; also of hate into love in some cases of homosexuality in which love was
preceded by hostile rivalry. Such a direct change of affect, Freud believes, makes the
differentiation of the two kinds of drive very questionable or impossible, since this
change is based on the assumption of 'contrary physiological processes'. There is,
however, also another possibility of explaining this phenomenon of the transformation
of affect into its opposite which does not contradict postulating two kinds of drive. This
would be the concept if this change of affect were based merely on the economic motive
of a more favorable possibility of discharge. Of course, Freud continues, this
hypothesis is based merely upon the assumption: 'We have reckoned as though there
existed in the mindwhether in the ego or in the ida displaceable energy, which is in
itself neutral, but is able to join forces either with an erotic or with a destructive
impulse, differing qualitatively as they do, and augment its total cathexis. Without
assuming the existence of a displaceable energy of this kind we can make no headway.
The only question is where it comes from, what it belongs to, and what it signifies.'11
We believe it possible to strengthen Freud's hypothesis, to lend it added proof, by
referringon the basis of our conclusionsto the ego ideal as that displaceable neutral
energy postulated by Freud. This is the less contradictory because the ego ideal has
those characteristics which Freud presupposes for that neutral energy: it stems from the
narcissistic reserves of the libido, and is desexualized Eros.
Here, however, arises an apparent contradiction; for it is not easy to join narcissism with
a neutral state of energy. This contradiction loses much of its point when one
remembers that Eros has here undergone desexualization. Little more than its
- 331 shadow remains. One might say that there is about it a tincture of the death instinct,
since desexualization is, in fact, the work of Thanatos; furthermore, the introjected
persons were fearsome till the intervention of Eros, which greatly modified this fear.
All in all, the ego ideal presents itself as an unhomogeneous, and hence very incomplete
institution, a barely successful alloy of two unequal substancesof the extremely
resistant, almost invincible original narcissism with the images of the introjected
persons to whom one cannot attribute nearly the same resistance.






Little wonder, in view of this nature of the ego ideal, that the two instincts have no
difficulty in taking possession of this energy which thus becomes the alternating prey of
now the one, now the other, and then wearing the colorsone thinks of black and red
of the victor of the moment. Like Homer's heroes who wake to new life in Hades after
they have drunk blood, so can this shadow, the desexualized Eros, be revived through
the infusion of the energy of one of the two drives.
This changing play of the instincts makes it understandable that the superego is founded
on a double principle, which Freud characterized by the two formulas: 'You ought to',
and 'You must not'. The two currents differ both genetically and from the standpoint of
instinct psychology. The 'you ought to' corresponds to the ego ideal. The 'you must not'
has its genesis in the aggression of Thanatos directed against the ego, an aggression
which the ego attempts at all costs to redirect to external objects, so that it may not itself
be annihilated. But this redirection can be successful only to a small degree because of
the helplessness of the child, which cannot express such considerable aggressions. The
irreconcilability of self-aggression with the narcissistic position of the ego results in a
projection of this aggression in such wise that it is felt as coming from without as an
external threat. However, these persons in the environment originally felt to be
dangerous are later on incorporated into the ego ideal, a fact which has as its
consequence a radical change in their evaluation as dangerous. There
- 332 they have become invested with narcissism, so that the ego's aggression against them
must be greatly reduced and modified; otherwise it would in a certain sense become
self-aggression. This in turn results in a damming-up of aggression, and therewith the
danger of its being turned against the subject's own ego, a danger which is signalized by
anxiety.
The derivation of the 'you must not' of the superegoin which the emphasis seems to
lie with the intensity of the death instinct, whereas its conditioning by the object and its
connection with the latter is regarded as a very loose onefinds support in the striking
fact that the severity of the superego is comparatively rarely derived from the severity of
the parents. Usually there is, rather, no relationship, or an antithesis between the two.
The decisive factor seems to us the presence of a greater outpouring of instinctual
energy which the ego is hindered in directing upon objects. The ultimate aggression of
the death instinct, turned against the subject's own ego, is reflected in mythology and
ancient religion in the daimon, and for purposes of easier reference we shall use this
term to designate the anxiety-creating you-must-not part of the superego. The nonhomogeneity of the ego ideal furthers the strivings of the daimon to an extraordinary
degree. It is possible for the daimon to use the ego ideal and its neutral energy as a sort
of silent example which is constantly held up to the intimidated ego, thus giving rise to
feelings of guilt; thus it happens that the persons of the environment who have been
incorporated into the ego ideal turn out to be extremely uncertain allies of the ego.






They attack the ego behind its back, and become indirectly helpers of Thanatos in that
they alleviate the aggression of the ego and are themselves full of contradictionsan
echo of the inconsistency of all upbringing. This explains why the daimon can dictate
the most contradictory and therefore entirely unachievable demands to the ego. On the
one hand, the daimon is opposed to every object cathexis because this conducting-off of
aggression relieves the ego; on the other hand, it urges the ego toward object cathexis,
in constantly holding up
- 333 to it the silent example of the ego ideal which also is a residue of objects; finally the
daimon also turns against the self-sufficient narcissism as an expression of Eros.
By using the ego ideal for his own purposes, the daimon mobilizes Eros against Eros,
defeats him with his own weapons, and thus renders at naught the purposes of Eros
which the latter pursued in the creation of the ego ideal.
Nevertheless, Eros is by no means finally defeated; he is constantly attempting to parry
Thanatos's onslaughts, and to shake the ego ideal out of its neutrality. The aggression
directed against the ego (originally it had no relationship at all to the objects of the
external world) is experienced by way of projection as coming from the external world
to relieve the narcissistic threat involved. Even the need for punishment may be
conceived of as a praevenire, whose motive is also to be found in the striving for
narcissistic unity. Perhaps this is the true meaning of Nietzsche's conception of guilt:
the will to power against one's own helplessness.
While, however, these processes may be regarded as protective and thus merely defense
measures of Eros, the possibility of a complete triumph is vouchsafed only if Eros
succeeds in erotizing punishment, in making it a source of masochistic pleasure. Thus
masochism is a triumph of Eros, but certainly not an isolated one because, as one of us
noted in an earlier paper,12 guilt not only is a consequence of but also an incentive
toward renewed efforts on the part of Eros in its fight against the death instinct; efforts
not only to restrain aggression, but even to use it as a means to its own ends. The hardpressed ego does not shrink from attack in its despairing defense. There is no lack of
visible evidence of these offensive tactics of the ego which is usually regarded as only
passive in this struggle. Witness, for example, the psychodynamics of wit, comedy,13
humor, and especially of mania. These are allwith the exception of maniamore or
less veiled eruptions of the ego's aggression against the ego ideal. They represent
attempts to

12Jekels, Ludwig: Das Schuldgefhl. Psa. Bewegung, IV, 1932, p. 345.

13Cf. Jekels, Ludwig: Psychologie der Komdie. Imago, XII, 1926, p. 328.
- 334 -






wrest from the daimon the weapons used to torture the ego. For this, the narcissistic
ego mobilizes aggression against the daimon's aggression; the daimon is to be
conquered with his own weapons. In this case aggression seems to have been placed in
the service of Eros; the complete antithesis to the use of the ego ideal by the daimon.
Eros pitted against Eros, Thanatos against Thanatoswhat complete revenge!
LOVE AND GUILT
Despite the fact that from ancient times there have been numberless investigations of
the subject, little progress was made in elucidating the psychology of love. In his
Metaphysik der Geschlechtsliebe, Schopenhauer wrote: 'One should be surprised
that a thing which in human lives plays such an important rle throughout has been
regarded so little by philosophers, and is still an uninvestigated subject today. Plato
perhaps was the only one to treat the subject to any extent, as he did, especially in the
Symposium and in the Phaedrus, but what he has to say remains in the field of
mythology, fable and jest, and mostly concerns only the Greek love of boys. The little
which Rousseau in his Discours sur l'Ingalit has to say on our subject is incorrect and
insufficient. Kant's discussion of the subject, in the third part of his ber das Gefhl
des Schnen und Erhabenen, is very superficial and without knowledge of the subject,
therefore also partly incorrect.'
M. Rosenthal, a contemporary writer who is not a psychoanalyst, states in a book
entitled Die Liebe, Ihr Wesen und Wert: 'To discover and explain the spiritual currents
which partly flow deeply below the surface, and which have determined the
development of sexual love from its beginnings, to the modern idealistic view is a
difficult and hitherto unsolved task'.
In psychoanalysis we are again indebted to Freud for giving us the most far-reaching,
most comprehensive illumination of the psychology of love. From his paper on
Instincts and Their Vicissitudes we gather that the relations of the ego to the object,
carried by pregenital libido, can at most be regarded as preliminary stages of love. This
is true not only of the
- 335 object relations of the oral stage, but especially of anal-sadistic relationships, which are
hard to differentiate from hate. One can speak of love only when the relation of the
whole ego to the object stems from the already developed genital organization of the
libido. This relationship to the object cannot be separated from genital organization, is
conditioned by it, and formed by it into the antithesis of hate.
These are accepted as psychoanalytic axioms; however, when these formulations were
made, Freud had not as yet developed two of his greatest concepts: Eros and Thanatos,
the two powers dominating the mind and the metapsychological structure of the
personality.






In our discussion of the superego we have sketched the struggle between these two
primal instincts, and we believe that love also is an expression of this struggle. For
here, too, the problem is to make the daimon powerless by taking away its implement of
torture, the ego ideal, and adding the erotic striving to the neutral energy of the ego
ideal. This accounts for the often startling similarity of love to the exalted mood of the
manic and of the unquestionable psychological relationship of the two. The difference
is the use of another method of disarming the daimon. In mania the daimon is disarmed
by aggression, in love by projecting the ego ideal onto the object. This is the ideal state
in which there is no tension between the ego and the ego ideal. We believe,
nevertheless, that the search for love has as its prerequisite a certain degree of tension
between ego and ego ideal. Love, for the ego, has the significance of incontestable
proof that the unbearable tension between ego and ego ideal does not exist; thus love is
an attempted denial which, in contrast to mania, is successful. It is self-evident that
where in the normal states there is no appreciable tension of this sort, this mechanism of
denial is unnecessary.
The disarming of the daimon, as well as the great narcissistic satisfaction given by the
proof of being loved by one's own ego ideal, are the sources of the manic ecstasy of
love.
The projection of the ego ideal on the object, under pressure
- 336 of the daimon, springs from a tendency of the ego to renew the ego ideal out of the
endopsychic perception that the old ego ideal has proved itself insufficiently effective
against the daimon's aggression, and that its projection has been felt to be insufficient.
This projection ('cathexis of the object with libido') is the attempt to set up an agreement
between the object and the ego ideal, such as the subject desires in his hard-pressed
state.
This projection is followed by a partial reintrojection of the projected ego ideal into the
ego, which by implication means that the object was cathected with narcissistic libido.
This reintrojection exhibits, by comparison with the initial projection, the essential
element of love. One can speak of love only when such a reintrojection has taken place.
In love the ego ideal is, then, projected on the object and, thus 'strengthened', is
reintrojectedthe daimon is thereby disarmed. The consequence of this is the preeminence of Eros, which also has taken to itself the neutral energy of the ego ideal.
This is the explanation of the disregard of all logical and rational considerations so often
observed as characteristic of almost all love, and of the overestimation of the love
object, sometimes almost delusional in degree. Behind the beloved object there is one's
own egobasking in the manic intoxication of being lovedwhich the object has
deemed worthy to replace the most treasured thing on earth, the ego ideal.






This concept of ours leads finally to the conclusion that love is an attempt at recapturing
narcissistic unity, the complete wholeness of the personality, which the ego considers
endangered, seriously threatened by the daimon, by guilt feeling which constitutes a
considerable disturbance to narcissistic unity.
Is love then a consequence of a feeling of guilt? This opinion may seem peculiar, but
we maintain it. We also believe that it is substantiated by the phenomenon of
transference. Let us emphasize at this point the decisive characteristic which
distinguishes the latter from love. We are sure of the assent of
- 337 all experienced analysts when we emphasize the following symptoms of transference as
especially striking and characteristic: 1, the infallibility of its occurrence despite the
absence of choice as regards the object, manifesting itself with a complete disregard of
age or sex, and disregarding every personal quality or its absence; 2, its impetuosity
which, though often veiled, betrays itself in some instances before the patient has met
the physician.
In contrast to the indiscriminateness and inevitability of transference, how greatly and
how closely is love conditioned by circumstances; how touchy and changeable in its
early stages if conditions do not conform to at least a minimum extent.
This phenomenological difference reveals to a large extent the psychological one. What
do these characteristics of transference, the inevitability of its occurrence under
practically all circumstances and its impetuosity, denote? Are these not the
characteristics of an attitude of 'cost what it may', and the expression of the fact that the
transference is an act of despair arising from a mood of panicborn out of the intuitive
realization of the power of love to protect against the daimon, as in the case of the
person in love? But what a difference! Like the provident fighter, the person in love
knew how to wrest from the daimon at his first approach the weapon of the ego ideal
even before he could successfully grasp it.
There is an almost grotesque contrast between the neurotic, capable of hardly more than
years of passivity without initiative (the intermediate state of the transference neurosis),
and the activity and initiative of the person in love who in wooing the object projects his
ego ideal with unceasing efforts to remodel the object to accord with his wishful
fantasy, and to attribute to it as much reality as possible. There is no more effective
force in human motivation than love. The mature lover is a victorious fighter.
Is guilt the only difference between transference and love? Psychoanalytically, the
difference is that in the case of love, only the ego ideal is projected onto the object,
whereas in
- 338 -






transference the superego, the ego ideal and the daimon, are projected. Transference is
also very different from love in that the object is not only the object of love but perhaps
to an even greater extent an object of anxiety.
While the ego ideal is capable of a complete projective cathexispossibly due to the
plasticity and displaceability of the erotic drivesthe daimon can apparently be only
partially projected. The recurrent depressions and complaints of patients in analysis,
long after projection has been completed, speak in favor of this.
All loving is the equivalent of being loved. In the last analysis there is only the wish to
be loved; it depends only on the mechanism whether the wish to be loved is infantile
(pregenital) or mature (genital). Either the object coincides with the ego ideal which the
subject in love feels as ego, or the situation is reversed and the person himself acts his
ego ideal and reduces the object to the ego.
These two mechanisms have a special place in the phenomena of love. On the one hand
there is a type of person in love who looks up to the object, stands in subjection to it,
demands and enjoys the object's care, demands emphatically to be loved in return. The
other extreme is exemplified by him who is concerned primarily with patronizing,
benevolent ruling, caring for, and spending upon, and who cares much less for the
return of affection.
For purposes of differentiation we call the first type feminine love, the second
masculine love. These designations result from a general impression, and we do not
maintain that these forms of love always coincide with the respective sexes.14
It is superfluous to emphasize that the psychological difference between the two types
of love does not conflict with the statement that the meaning of love is the disarmament
of the daimon. Only the method is different. While the masculine type arrogates the
attributes of the ego ideal to annihilate all tension between it and the ego, the feminine
type succeeds through the

14This noncorrespondence is largely conditioned by fixations: in the male on the oral,

in the female on the phallic level (penis envy).
15Cf. Spinoza: 'Amor est titillatio concomitante idea causae externae.'
- 339 illusion of satisfying the ego ideal by being loved by it. A confirmation of the
correctness of this explanation of the process of love is the fact that it resolves a
contradiction in the psychology of narcissism. While in Freud's On Narcissism: An
Introduction, the essential feature in relation to the object is the desire to be loved, the
opposite is stated in Libidinal Types, where it is stated that the active desire to love is
characteristic of the narcissistic type. The two types discussed by Freud seem to






correspond wholly with what we call feminine and masculine loving whereby, as
already mentioned, both lead back to the deep desire to be loved.15
The narcissistic intoxication of love requires that the object fulfil the wishful rle which
the ego ideal projects. In requited love, this strengthens the feeling of being loved.
While nothing happens to destroy the illusion, there obtains the possibility of
astonishing deception. The more completely the object conforms, the more happy and
intense the love. This seems to apply especially in instances of 'love at first sight'. As
an example, one recalls young Werther who at the very first meeting falls deeply in love
with Lotte, who appears as a loving mother surrounded by children to whom she is
giving bread.
Occasionally very little agreement between the desire of the ego ideal and the reaction
of the object is necessary to produce the feeling of requited love. Gross indifference or
repulse from the object causes the lover to fall prey to a more or less profound
depression, a severe narcissistic injury with marked reduction of self-esteem. The
narcissistic ego has failed in the drive against the daimon who now basks in his victory
over the ego. The ego ideal which had been wrested from the daimon again becomes
subservient to its aims. The discrepancy between the fantasied and the realizable ego
ideal is inescapable, and the ego is plunged into an abyss of guilt, to the point of a
feeling of complete worthlessness.
The preservation of self-esteem observed in mature personalities, which despite
disappointments enables them to invest new objects with love, stems from an ego that
to escape the
- 340 daimoncan prove to itself that it is after all loved by its ego ideal. After a
disappointment in love the ego may regress through homosexuality to narcissistic
withdrawal or suicidal masochism.
The correctness of the interpretation of love as a reintrojectionfollowing its
projectionof the ego ideal is gauged by its utility, by its illumination for us of much
that was hitherto unclear. To illustrate this point we choose a phenomenon which Freud
indicated as hitherto unexplained, and which seems without doubt of the greatest
importance both for the comprehension of psychopathology and for the understanding
of character formation: the substitution of object cathexis by identification, which
Freud first established in homosexuality, later in melancholia, and finally, in The Ego
and the Id, he attributed to normal character development.
'When it happens that a person has to give up a sexual object, there quite often ensues a
modification in his ego which can only be described as a reinstatement of the object
within the ego, as it occurs in melancholia; the exact nature of this substitution is as yet
unknown to us. It may be that by undertaking this introjection, which is a kind of
regression to the mechanism of the oral phase, the ego makes it easier for an object to






be given up or renders that process possible. It may even be that this identification is
the sole condition under which the id can give up its objects. At any rate the process,
especially in the early phases of development, is a very frequent one, and it points to the
conclusion that the character of the ego is a precipitate of abandoned object cathexes
and that it contains a record of past object choices.'16
We believe that Freud's reservation, 'the exact nature of this substitution is as yet
unknown to us', is no longer justified in the light of our conception of the love process;
for this identification, replacing object love (reintrojection), is not a phenomenon arising
de novo, but occurs at the very beginning of the love process and is an integral part of it.
Our concept of reintrojection and of its pre-eminent importance in the process

16Freud: The Ego and the Id. London: Hogarth Press, 1927, p. 36.
17Coll. Papers, IV, p. 81.
- 341 of love is, moreover, greatly strengthened by Freud's conception in Instincts and Their
Vicissitudes: 'It is primarily narcissistic, is then transferred to those objects which have
been incorporated in the ego, now much extended '.17
The conflicts and complications arising out of love in many instances constitute a sort
of atonement through the chronic suffering which greatly outlasts the state of being in
love, an appeasement of the daimon, who thus takes revenge at compound interest for
his temporary helplessness. When a love relationship terminates, the ego treats the
object with the same severity and criticism with which it is itself dominated by the
daimon. This makes understandable the aggressions against a former love object; they
are attempts of the ego to transfer the punishment of the daimon onto the object. This
represents at the same time a captatio of the daimon, according to the formula: I don't
love the object.
THE AUTARCHIC FICTION
At the beginning of extrauterine life the infant is ignorant of any sources of pleasure
other than in itself, a state falling within the scope of the 'period of unconditional
omnipotence', described by Ferenczi. According to Freud, the maternal breast is for a
time regarded by the child as part of its own body. This conception of Freud has
hitherto been insufficiently appreciated in its fundamental significance, indeed hardly
recognized. The familiar controversy about when the ego is discovered must much
more correctly and fruitfully be replaced by the more important question: when is the
object discovered.
This stage of infantile omnipotence is an 'autarchic fiction' of the infant. A
substantiation of this is the frequency with which an infant reacts to weaning with






masturbationdemonstrating how unwillingly the infantile ego orients itself to objects,
and how, clinging to its feeling of omnipotence, it first of all disavows objects.
How enduring this autarchic fiction is, is illustrated by the psychoanalysis of coitus.
Strcke's paper on the castration

18Strcke, August: The Castration Complex. Int. J. Psa., II, 1921, pp. 179201.
19Ferenczi, Sandor: Thalassa: A Theory of Genitality. New York: Psa. Quarterly, Inc.,
1938.
20Cf. also Rank, Otto: The Genesis of Genitality. Psa. Rev., XIII, 1926, pp. 129144.
21Deutsch, Helene: Psychology of Women. Two Vols. New York: Grune & Stratton,
1944 and 1945.
22Bergler, Edmund and Eidelberg, Ludwig: Der Mammakomplex des Mannes. Int.
Ztschr. f. Psa., XIX, 1933, pp. 547583.
- 342 complex18 deserves first mention because he was the first to call attention to oral
castration through weaning. Ferenczi19 observed that infants of both sexes play the
double rle of child and mother with their own bodies.20 Coitus is characterized as a
'trace of maternal regression' in which there is a threefold identification: of the whole
organism with the genitals; with the partner; with the genital secretion. The rhythm of
sucking is retained as an important part of all adult erotic activity, whereby considerable
quantities of oral and anal erotism are transferred to the vagina. In the transformation of
instincts, the female infant's pleasure in sucking the nipple is displaced to the woman's
vaginal pleasure in receiving the penis in coitus.21 For her this re-creation of her first
relationship to an external object is an 'oral' incorporation which represents a mastering
of the trauma of weaning. According to Bernfeld, the hand of the male infant at first
replaces the mouth, and is later characterized by equating milk and semen. Adult coitus
thus would not only be a substitute for the breast but a sadistic revenge for weaning.
Bergler and Eidelberg22 observed clinically that children have the repetitive
compulsion to reproduce actively in play what once they had to endure passively, in
attempts to master the trauma of weaning. The severe narcissistic injury caused by
withdrawal of the breast is partially compensated by masturbation which helps restore
the feeling of omnipotence. The authors assume a cathexis of the penis with an instinct
fusion of Eros and Thanatos, and believe that the position of this fusion, stemming from
the death instinct, has undergone such extensive change in the sex act that its
gratification can be accomplished without danger to the ego. In coitus the male, in
identification with the phallic mother,
- 343 -






overcomes the trauma of weaning through becoming the active rather than the passive
participant.
Thus, in the opinion of all the authors cited, coitus has the significance of a repetition of
infantile sexuality. Beyond this assumption of coitus as an echo of the child-mother
relationship is our conviction of the deeply narcissistic character of the sex act. The
emphasis placed on the relationship to the object seems not to be what is of importance,
especially since by identification with the object the infantile gratification is also
recaptured. What is fundamental is that the desire to be lovedthe nucleus of the later
demand of the ego upon the ego idealis based on the desire never to be separated
from the lactating maternal breast. This longing is not really directed to the object, the
maternal breast; rather it represents an attempt at narcissistic restitution, for it was
directed to the breast when this was still perceived as part of the subject's egothe basis
of the later ego ideal. Of what great consequence this 'cardinal error of the infant'
becomessit venia verboregarding the 'allocation' of the giving breast, we have
outlined in connection with the process of love. Grotesque as it may sound, the object
cathexis in the process of love stems in the last analysis from this, its purpose being to
recapture for the individual his lost narcissistic completeness. Freud's well-known
statement supports this thesis.23
When we keep in mind how the ego continually endeavors by means of the attempts at
restitution outlined above to make sure of its narcissistic unity, the behavior of the
neurotic in the transference at last becomes clear. It is based primarily on the fear of
literal spatial separation.
The truly surprising factusually dismissed with a reference to the instinct of
reproductionthat love so imperatively urges sexual union and satisfaction now also
becomes comprehensible.
We believe that there must exist precise psychic
determinants, the discovery of which seems essential for the comprehension of the
psychology of love. To Freud's formulation that love stems from the capacity of the ego
to satisfy part of its drives

23See the first paragraph of this paper.

- 344 autoerotically, through the gain of organic pleasure, we would pose the question: for
what purpose, then, does the ego follow the roundabout way through objects, only to
return again to itself?
In the final analysis both tender and sensual love have the same aim. Both are by nature
narcissistic attempts at restitution which occur under the pressure of the repetitive
compulsion.






Coitus expresses physically what tenderness does emotionally; for what in tenderness is
expressed through reintrojection of the object, substituted for the ego ideal, is revealed
in sensual love through the pure impulse to 'contraction', this hitherto puzzling urge
which so dominates people in love, the need to cling together as closely, as inseparably
as possible.
It is alone the combination of both parts of lovethe maximum expression of unity
that becomes the strongest negation of the feeling of separateness, of incompleteness, of
narcissistic damagea maximal expression of unity perhaps only surpassed by the
creating of a child, that materialization of the fantasy of unity.
THE TRANSFERENCE
In Observations on Transference Love, Freud says that no difference exists between
transference and love. Transference is merely love under special conditions (of analysis
and resistance), and thus represents merely a special case of love.
Repeating and supplementing our earlier discussion of love in transference, we believe
that the difference between the two lies in the fact that while in love the object is put in
the place of the ego ideal through projection, in transference the physician unites in his
person via projection the superego, ego ideal and daimon. In the last, anxiety
predominates. With the former there is overestimation of the object, the work of love.
Dread of the physician, or the desire to be loved by him, are thus the characteristic
attitudes of transference.
In the positive transference the patient wants to be loved by the doctor as his ego ideal.
The consequence of this desire
- 345 to be loved by the physician and of the fear of him is a narcissistic identification with
him. The nucleus of all positive transference, as in the case of love, is the narcissistic
phenomenon of wanting to be loved. Equally, what has previously been said about
active loving and the passive desire to be loved applies also to transference: the actively
loving person represents his ego in the object, while he himself imitates his ego ideal.
For the person wanting passively to be loved, the object represents the ego ideal by
which he wants to be loved, and he himself represents the ego.
In the negative transference the hatred directed against the physician (the parents) is
also directed against the ego. This hatred often disguises love (positive transference
under the guise of negative transference), or the aggression of the patient is merely an
attempt to test the love of the physician. Sometimes the discharge of the aggressions of
the person's own ego upon the object has been unsuccessful. This is the difference
between 'normal' and neurotic hatred; in the former, the directing of Thanatos onto the
object has been successful. Neurotic hatred is directed against the ego through anxiety
and guilt.






This leads to the psychopathology of ambivalence. According to the conception here
outlined, love is the desire to be loved by the ego ideal which has been projected onto
the object; hate is the attempt to transfer Thanatos onto the object. The attempt is
unsuccessful; the aggression is inhibited because the object is the person's own ego
ideal, so that the aggression is after all again directed against the ego.
Thus, in positive and negative transference narcissistic elements are as predominant as
they are in love. What distinguishes it from love is the extent of the participation of the
superego which is projected onto the object (in love, only the ego ideal; in transference,
the ego ideal and the daimon). Progress in analytic treatment lies in overcoming the
projection of the daimon upon the doctor in the interest of projecting the ego ideal upon
him, in order to resolve this too at the end of treatment. Thus, the patient learns to
'love'. Identification
- 346 as a defense against anxiety gives way also to that identification which we have
previously designated as an integral part of love.
NARCISSISTIC RESTITUTION AND THE DISCHARGE OF AGGRESSION
First the ego turns toward objects only reluctantly; in the stage of fictious autarchy its
own body is also an object. Only after attempts to maintain this fiction have failed,
does it resort to other mechanisms to reinstate the lost feeling of omnipotence. This is
the most basic function and use of objects for the ego. This is the origin of the ego
ideal, of the libidinal cathexis of objects.
Adult love has been described as a special instance of object cathexis, dependent upon
feelings of guilt. The infant, however, first invests the objects which ministered to its
instinct of self-preservation and which become sources of pleasure. This seems to
reverse our view of the close tie of love with guilt, since it would seem that there is no
place for feelings of guilt in this instance; however, insufficiently discharged forces of
self-aggression exclude complete freedom from feelings of guilt.
Anna Freud, in connection with a report by Dorothy Burlingham on the urge for
communication in childrenaccording to which, apart from its exhibitionistic aim, it is
also an invitation to partnership in mutual sexual pleasuremade some observations
which seem to be extremely important. Anna Freud believes that in view of this
concept, the uninhibiting form of upbringing does not differ in its result from the
orthodox, prohibiting form because the expectation of sexual partnership by the child is
not attained. This may account for instances in which the most complete tolerance
toward infantile masturbation has not the anticipated effect. The child may feel in the
adult's failure to participate in its sexual activity an actual rejection.
From here, it is only a short step to assuming feelings of guilt in the infant. The young
child does not remain ignorant






- 347 of the fact that its desires are at variance with the attitudes of adults, that it therewith
remains far behind its developing ego ideal.
The objection that this assumption of guilt in the child contradicts psychoanalytic theory
is met by the statement that we are speaking here only of the preliminary stages
however far-reaching in their consequencesof the superego which will finally emerge
only after the complete resolution of the dipus complex; moreover, let us not overlook
the fact that in the question of guilt feeling we are dealing, in the last analysis, with the
problem of anxiety, and let us take stock of the intimate psychological relationship
between these two phenomena. One may then justly state that as guilt feelings act as a
motive for love in the adult, so anxiety acts in the child. Freud's conclusion is basically
that this anxiety is an expression of the fear of separation. But we do not regard this
postulated desire not to be separated from the mother as the ultimate and deepest
motive, but rather regard the threat to the infant's narcissistic unity as the ultimate
danger. The autarchic fiction gives us a clear hint that fundamentally anxiety is based
on the threat to this fictitious unity, which seems to be paradigmatic for psychic life;
thus, a disturbing of this fiction may be evaluated as the most severe violation of
narcissism, whose restitution is at the root of object cathexis, the almost compulsive
pertinacity of which it explains.
The way in which the object is made to serve this narcissistic restoration has already
been sufficiently emphasized in the discussion of the phenomenon of love. Let us
mention the familiar psychoanalytic concept according to which the ego withdraws
from objects the libido with which the id has cathected them in order to grow and
expand at the cost of these objects. Let us also add that reintrojection is not only a
weapon against the daimon, but likewise, through the expansion and strengthening of
the ego, renders considerable support to the fiction of omnipotence. This seems an
additional proof that love may be counted among those narcissistic efforts at restitution
which occur under the pressure of the repetitive
- 348 compulsion. As can be seen from the foregoing, we do not consider justified a farreaching distinction in principlelet alone an antithesisbetween narcissistic and
object-libidinal cathexes, however great the heuristic value of such differentiation might
be. Object cathexes have no other significance than of a statement concerning the state
of the narcissistic libido; hence nothing more than an indicator. We are thus in
complete agreement with Freud's original contention, unchanged through five decades,
as expressed in the New Introductory Lectures: 'There is therefore a constant
transformation of ego libido into object libido, and object libido into ego libido' (p.
141).






The second function of objects for the egothe discharge of the aggression of Thanatos
originally directed against the ego itselfis certainly as important for the psychic
economy as the first. It, also, serves narcissistic intactness. However apt it might be,
we are not malicious enough to state that object relationship in the service of the
discharge of aggression is the most respectable of which the human being is capable.
Here again we find a cause why real objects are necessary in the automatic repetitions
previously described. Why does man not stick to masturbation which has been familiar
and comfortable to him since childhood? Surely all this could also have been partially
expressed in masturbation. Simply, there is not enough possibility in the subject's own
ego for discharge of so important aggressive elements, which in part form the
substratum of these tendencies, such as revenge, hostile feeling tones, etc., unless one
chooses the masochistic and hence neurotic way out. It is practically the stigma of
neurotics, with their insufficient and inhibited directing of aggression from their own
egos upon objects, that they have to resort to masturbation. The insufficient discharge
of aggression in masturbation seems to us a circumstance of which the importance
should not be underrated.24 It is one which seems important to us for two reasons:
first, it explains the inadequacy of satisfaction

24Nunberg, Herman: Allgemeine Neurosenlehre auf Psychoanalytischer Grundlage.

Bern: Hans Huber Verlag, 1932, p. 168.
- 349 through masturbation; second, it makes highly questionable the frequently alleged
harmlessness of masturbation, if it does not contradict it outright.
The autarchic fiction is the paradigm of the striving for narcissistic completeness which
man, with the aid of objects, pursues throughout his life. Possibly the intuitive
realization of this is reflectedhowever distortedlyin those philosophical systems
which teach that the world exists only as idea. Much more attractive is the thought that
the autarchic fiction may in the last analysis be why man's whole life is interwoven with
fictions, and is hardly possible without them.

- 350 -






1949) THE SYMBOLIC EQUATION: GIRL = PHALLUS. PSYCHOANAL. Q.,
18:303 (PAQ)

THE SYMBOLIC EQUATION: GIRL = PHALLUS

OTTO FENICHEL
I
In the article, The Analysis of a Transvestite,1 I established the fact that at the root of
this perversion there lay the patient's unconscious fantasy of being a girl with a phallus.
Ifschematically speakingthe homosexual has identified himself with his mother,
and the fetishist has not relinquished the belief in the woman's possession of a penis,
both of these formulations are valid for the male transvestite: he identifies himself with
a woman in whose possession of a penis, furthermore, he wishes to believe.
My patient acted out this rle of a phallic girl in order to be able to yield to feminine
wishes which were opposed by intense castration anxiety. The perversion purportedly
counteracted this anxiety, for its purpose, as I stated, was to say to the object: 'Love me
like the mother (or like the sister); it is not true that I thereby endanger my penis'. I was
able to demonstrate the probability that this is, in a general sense, the meaning of the
transvestite act. It is a compromise between feminine wishes and an opposing fear of
castration, or, since the fear of castration is the result of a heightened narcissistic
evaluation of one's own penis, between the feminine wish and the narcissistic pride in
one's penis. The exhibitionistic behavior of such patients has therefore the double
meaning: 'I want to be seen and admired for my penis', and 'I want to be seen and
admired as a beautiful girl'. In the earlier paper referred to, I described as the most
important incidental factor in transvestitism the fact that usually the identification with
the mother is at the

This article, translated from Int. Ztschr. f. Psa., XXII, 1936, No. 3, is taken from a
forthcoming book, Selected Papers of Otto Fenichel, translated by Henry Alden Bunker,
M.D., to be published by W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., and is printed with the permission
of the publishers.
Translated by HENRY ALDEN BUNKER, M.D.
1Fenichel, Otto: Zur Psychologie des Transvestitismus. Int. Ztschr. f. Psa., XVI, 1930.
2Freud: From the History of an Infantile Neurosis. Coll. Papers, III, p. 473.
- 303 -






same time, on a more superficial level, an identification with a little girl. These
objectively contradictory tendencies are supposed to find expression simultaneously; of
their relationship to each other, thus far nothing is conveyed. The situation might
parallel that of the 'Wolf-man', in that a relatively primary feminine longing is opposed
by the realization that 'the gratification of this desire would cost the penis',2 as it might
be that an originally strong penis pride and a phallic tendency to exhibitionism were
inhibited by castration anxiety, and then became replaced by a feminine tendency to
exhibitionism. In any case, phallic and feminine pleasure in exhibiting coalesce to form
the leading fantasy of such patients: 'I show myself as a girl with a penis'. My patient,
for example, was the recipient in his childhood of both phallic and feminine admiration,
in that adults called his penis by pet names and alsobecause of his long hairextolled
him as a 'beautiful girl'.
In his perverse practices this patient represented not only a phallic girl but also a phallus
pure and simple. I wrote: 'The patient combined his femininity with a nave narcissistic
love for his own penis, which as a child he had called pet names; indeed, the girl's name
which he wanted to have as a girl bore a striking resemblance to the pet name for his
penis. Thus came about the symbolic equation: patient in woman's clothes = mother
with penis = penis in general.' The strength of the castration anxiety corresponds to the
original penis narcissism, on account of which he could only indulge his later
narcissistic longing to be admired as a girl by both equipping this girl with a penis and
fantasying her as a penis directly. The equations, 'I am a girl' and 'my whole body is a
penis' are here condensed into the idea: 'I = my whole body = a girl = the little one =
the penis'.
Here we see for the first time that the frequently valid symbolic equation 'penis = child'
(the little one) can also assume the special form 'penis = girl'.
- 304 II
That girls, in their unconscious fantasies, frequently identify themselves with a penis
has often been set forth. We also understand how such an identification comes about.
It is one way among others of overcoming the original narcissistic penis envy. We
know that frequently the aim, 'I also want to have a penis'when oral wishes are in the
foreground, or oral fixations exist which in connection with the narcissistic injury
occasioned by the discovery of the penis give rise to regressionspasses over into the
aim, 'I want to incorporate a penis orally'; and again we know that such tendencies, by
reactivating old oral-sadistic wishes which once were directed against the mother, result
in identification. 'I have seized the penis and eaten it and have now myself become a
penis' is the formula of identifications of this kind. The prerequisite for a reaction of
this description is thus the persistence of 'tendencies to incorporation'. Lewin3 has
collected material germane to this. According to him, one often finds in women
simultaneously the fantasy of possessing a penis and the fantasy of being one. They






identify themselves, i.e., their whole body, with a penis, via the pathway of oral
introjection. The idea of having bitten off a penis or of having otherwise incorporated it
is the continuation of the unconscious equation 'body = penis'. This equation, the aim of
which is in fact that of a totum being taken into the body of the object, may therefore be
regarded as a passive complement to the fantasy of swallowing a penis. We are dealing,
hence, with a postphallic partial regression to oral conceptions.
I myself was able recently to publish the case of a patient in whose sexual life
voyeurism played a particularly important rle. The wish to see a penis covered the
deeper one of eating it. This oral-sadistic possessing of the 'seen' was meant as a
genuine introjection and hence resulted also in identifications.
I have written elsewhere:4

3Lewin, Bertram D.: The Body as Phallus. This QUARTERLY, II, 1933, p. 24.
4Fenichel, Otto: Weiteres zur prdipalen Phase der Mdchen. Int. Ztschr. f. Psa., XX,
1934, p. 151.
- 305 As is usual with oral characters, all her object relations were shot through with
identifications. This invariably became particularly evident in sexual relations. Once
when a friend of the patient proved to be impotent, her reaction to this was masculine to
such a degree that we found for it the following formulation: 'We are impotent'.
Affaires trois played an important rle in her fantasies as well as in her actual love
life. She liked her friend to be with another woman in her presence, enjoying this in
empathy with him. She found it unthinkable and quite unbearable that her friend might
visit another woman in her absence. She had the feeling: 'Without me he can't do it at
all!' Her expressions of affection always resulted in her snuggling up to the man's body
like a small part of the latter. When her friend left her she experienced a 'sore feeling' in
her back, as though her back had grown onto him and had now been torn loose. When,
finally, she produced dreams of men who instead of a penis had a child pendent from
the abdomen, there was no longer any doubt as to her identification with a penis. In the
fantasy of hanging like a penis from the man's abdomen, we had a kind of father's body
fantasy, the opposite of the fantasy of eating the father's penis: herself to be eaten as a
penis by the father. For the man who had a child hanging from his abdomen instead of
a penis appeared once again; now he had many such children; he had placed them inside
his belt, or perhaps he held one of them on high in order to harm it, like the great St.
Nicholas in 'Struwelpeter'; it was the 'Kindlifresser' of Bern.
Gradually the oral-sadistic impulses and tendencies toward identification with the penis
increasingly manifested characteristics which it was not possible to explain via the penis
but necessarily originated in an earlier period.






The father's body fantasy then turned out to be the continuation of a mother's body
fantasy, the idea of the penis a continuation of the idea of the inside of the mother's
body. To the identification with the penis, the pendent part of the father, there
corresponded an identification with the embryo, the dependent of the mother (the
Anhngsel of the father, the Inhngsel of the mother). The intention of disproving oralsadistic

5Lewin, Bertram D.: Claustrophobia. This QUARTERLY, IV, 1935, p. 227.

- 306 tendencies against the penis by the fantasy of harmonious unity with it'I am myself
the penis'seems in typical fashion a continuation of the intention of disproving oralsadistic tendencies against the mother's body by means of the fantasy of harmonious
unity with it'I am myself within the mother's body'. We must agree here with
Lewin,5 whose paper on the body as phallus was soon followed by one on
claustrophobiathat is, on the body as embryo. But this origin of our fantasy from a
longing for the mother's body is of less interest in the present connection than the
fantasy of the father's body (Vaterleibsphantasie): a little girl hangs from the father's
abdomen like a penis. Thus she is inseparably united with him, only a part of him, but
his most important part; the father is powerless when she does not function for him as
his magic wand, in the manner of Samson's hair.
I have since had the opportunity of analyzing another woman patient who, between the
striving to be a man and to be able to love as a woman, had found a compromise in
loving a man whose penis she unconsciously fantasied herself to bea form of love
which is of necessity strongly marked by identifying features. Let us say a few words
about this, since it takes us back to the fantasies of the male patient first discussed.
A gifted and very ambitious young girl was inhibited not only intellectually but in her
whole development to such an extent that she sought analysis. She presented, in the
first place, the familiar picture of a woman with 'sexualization of the intellect'. She
wanted to shine by means of her intellectual gifts, but was prevented from this by her
fear of disgrace. Analysis showed that the exhibitionistic achievement she really craved
was basically that of urination, and the disgrace she feared was the discovery of her
penisless state. The fear of this 'disgrace' was unconsciously intensified by a fear of
bloody injury to her genital. This fear manifested itself as a fear of retaliation for
corresponding oral-sadistic tendencies, primarily against the penis. For instance, in
order to escape the sadomasochistic

6Freud: The Taboo of Virginity. Coll. Papers, IV, p. 217.

- 307 -






temptation6 involved in defloration by a man, she had deflorated herself, and was filled
with a great longing for 'peaceful' sexuality. This longing for harmonious union of man
and woman was intended to refute the unconscious impulse to steal the penis and to
ward off the consequent fear of retaliation. She made the acquaintance of a man who
impressed her as a 'ravisher' and of whom she was therefore greatly afraid before she
entered into sexual relations with him. To her surprise the actual sexual union with him
was quite different from what she had imagined. Tenderness dominated over
sensuality; she felt united with him in perfect harmony, clung tenderly to him, free of
any anxiety; that she did not achieve orgasm did not seem bad to her at the time; they
talked little, and the patient thought this was so because the harmony between them was
so perfect that they understood each other without words, since they had become so
completely one. During their union she felt so fascinated by the man that she thought
she could do nothing that he did not want her to do. To the interpretation that she had
behaved as though she were a part of the man's body, the patient responded with a very
thinly disguised dipus dream in which the man was clearly recognizable as a father
image. And it was only in relation to the analysis of this dream that the various
examples of the many dipal daydreams of the patient came to be discussed. Her father
had traveled much and far, and upon his return from his journeyings used to tell of his
adventures. The patientin the latency period, and, even more clearly, in and after
pubertywould then fantasy herself as his companion. Secretly and invisibly, she
fantasied she was always with him and experienced all his adventures jointly with him.
These fantasies once took concrete form in the patient's giving her father the figure of a
little bear which he took with him on his travels. He fell in with these fantasies of his
daughter by making it his habit upon his return to take the bear out of his pocket and to
assure her that he had kept it sacred and that it was his talisman. The meaning of the
fantasy thus was that the patient, as the great
- 308 father's little companion, protected him to such effect that he would be powerless
without that protection. In analysis the patient fantasied herself as this bear which,
carried in her father's pocket, took part in his travels. She peeped out of the pocket; she
had a fantasy of kangaroos which peeped out of their mother's pouch, and realized that
in that night of love's harmony she had snuggled her small body against the big body of
her friend as though she were just such a young kangaroo. Thus we have a father's body
fantasy, quite after the pattern of the earlier case discussed.
Further analysis revealed unequivocally that here too the Vaterleibsphantasie covered a
Mutterleibsphantasie on a deeper level; that the penis corresponded to the idea of the
inside of the mother's body, of the embryo, in whose place she had fantasied herself.
The harmonious love scene repeated early experiences with the mother, and the whole
power of the oral sadism which so disturbed her life appeared only after the patient,
speaking of the summer of her fourth year at which time a sister had been born, said:






'My mother couldn't have lain in a hammock then'. 'But why not?' 'Because one would
have seen her pregnancy too clearly.' And to the remark that her thought suggested that
her mother had lain in such a way that she had noticed the pregnancy, the patient
replied: 'But I clearly remember that she didn't lie in a hammock!' Wherewith the way
was opened to the analysis of the patient's anger, stemming from that time. But this is
of relatively little interest to us. For us the recognition is sufficient that here too, the
fantasy 'I am a penis' represents a way out of the two conflicting tendencies, 'I want to
have a penis' and 'I want to love a man as a woman'. The fantasy of being a man's penis
(and therefore united with him in an inseparable harmony) subserves the
overcompensating repression of the other idea: 'I am robbing a man and therefore must
fear him'. For in that case nothing is taken away, and there exists only an indivisible
oneness. This, however, is brought about through identification with the penis, which
on a deeper level means once again: through the seizing of the penis.
- 309 III
The dipus fantasies of this patient have numerous points of contact with many often
recurrent motives of legend and fairy tale, as for example, little girl rescuers who protect
great men in all their adventures occur not infrequently. Miracle-performing little
companions (who do not necessarily have to be female), such as dwarfs, mandrakes,
talisman figures of all kinds, have often been analyzed, and the 'little double' has been
recognized as a phallic figure.7 The associations of the patient, however, first drew
attention to the connections existing between such phallic figures and the 'little girl
rescuers', by pointing, for example, to Ottogebe, who in her spirit of sacrifice rescued
poor Henry, or to Mignon, or to King Lear's youngest daughter, Cordelia, or to King
Nicolodrawn after Lear's imageto whom in his adversity only his youngest
daughter remained faithful. The usual interpretation of these girl figures is that they
represent a reversal of the 'rescue fantasy'. As is well known, the fantasy of men
rescuing women or girls has been interpreted by Freud in the sense that the rescued
women represent the mother.8 But a female figure who rescues a man must likewise
have mother significance. We do not doubt such an interpretation, and would merely
note that it leaves many traits of this 'girl rescuer' unexplained: her smallness, her
outward weakness which stands in such contrast to her magic strength, and all the
characteristics which these figures share with the above-mentioned phallic 'little double'.
Might not the interpretation be justified that all these female figures too have a penis
significance? Freud's interpretation of Lear's Cordelia, that she represents the deathgoddess,9 does not run counter to such a conception. The death-goddess is at all events
a magically omnipotent being, holding the far greater, far stronger father completely in
her power; she is connected with those phallic figures by the concept of 'magic

7Cf. Rank, B.: Der Dopplegnger. Imago, III, 1914, p. 97.






8Freud: On a Special Type of Choice of Objects Made by Men. Coll. Papers, IV, p. 192.
9Freud: The Theme of the Three Caskets. Coll. Papers, IV, p. 244.
10Reich, Annie: Zur Genese einer prgenital fixierten Neurose. Int. Ztschr. f. Psa.,
XVIII, 1932.
- 310 omnipotence'. From the feminine point of view this fantasy can likewise be understood
as a compensation for the narcissistic injury of their penislessness, of their being
inferior and smaller. 'Even though I am little, my father must love me, since without me
he can do nothing at all.' The infantile omnipotence of the girl, threatened anew through
the discovery of the penis, is restored through identification with the penis. I recall the
dumelinchen fantasies by means of which one of Annie Reich's patients was able to
compensate the numerous severe traumata of her early childhood by dominating her
male admirers through her enactment in unmistakable fashion of the rle of a phallus.10
IV
In psychoanalytic literature Mignon figures have often been a subject of investigation,
but always from the male point of view. Noteworthy in particular in this connection is
Sarasin's great work on Mignon herself,11 who loved Wilhelm in so unhappy and
dependent a manner and also had Harfner beside her as a father figure to whom she
belonged and together with whom she first formed the 'strange family'. Sarasin
recognized her as a figure in which the poet idealized his sister Cornelia; the poet
developed an ambivalent father identification toward her, with mutual rescue (and
destruction) fantasies. Sarasin noted that Mignon has various male characteristics, and
he cites inter alia two quotations from Goethe which may be quoted here: 'These two
remained to himHarfner whom he needed, and Mignon whom he could not do
without'; in the second passage referred to, Mignon is called a 'silly, bisexual creature'.
Such passages as these have caused other, preanalytic interpreters of Mignon (e.g.,
Wolff) to emphasize Mignon's hermaphroditic nature; but Sarasin explains these male
traces in Mignon simply by reference to the fact that in her there occurs a condensation
of the memory of Goethe's sister Cornelia

11Sarasin, P.: Goethes Mignon. Imago, XV, 1929.

- 311 and that of his dead brother Herman Jacob and of his other brothers and sisters. This is
certainly correct but does not seem to us sufficient. The poet feels empathy not only for
the Harfnerfather (grandfather) who kills and rescues children, in order thus to play the
rle of father toward his brothers and sisters (to love them and threaten them), but he
also feels empathy for Mignonthe intensity of Mignon's longing for Italy leaves no
doubt of thisin whom he would thus be loved or threatened in passive-homosexual






fashion. Mignon's male characteristics stem from the fact that she represents the poet
himself, that she gives expression to the fantasy: 'How would my father act toward me
if I were a girl like Cornelia?' It is interesting that Sarasin, who did not recognize this,
neverthless came close to this interpretation when he wrote: 'Here, probably, we are
made privy to a state of mind which borders on madness, where the longing for the
beloved object obliterates the boundary between the "I" and the "you", and initiates the
psychic process known to us by the name of identification'. That Mignon moreover
represents not only a boy, but specifically his penis, cannot be maintained with certainty
on the ground of her hermaphroditic characteristics, but becomes probable on the basis
of the total context, and also if one takes into account for example the symbolism of her
dancing.
Other available analyses of little girls like these, needful of help, yet in the sense of a
talisman, rendering itinfantile womenleave from the masculine standpoint no doubt
that in such cases we are dealing invariably with a narcissistic object choice. Such
objects always represent the man himself who fantasies himself as a girl. 'I want to be
loved as a girl in the same way as I now love this infantile woman.' The same
mechanism of object choice here involved, as Freud has described, pertains to a certain
type of male homosexuality,12 and it is now established that it also occurs in the
heterosexual. In my volume, Perversionen, Psychosen, und Charakterstrungen,13

12Freud: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Trans. by James Strachey. London:
Imago Publishing Co., 1949, pp. 22, ff.
13Fenichel, Otto: Perversionen, Psychosen, und Charakterstrungen. Vienna: Int. Psa.
Verlag, 1931, p. 21.
- 312 I wrote in this connection: 'In feminine men who during childhood or puberty liked to
fantasy themselves as girls, the same mechanism is present as in heterosexuals. They
fall in love with little girls in whom they see themselves embodied, and to whom they
give what their mothers denied them. Very probably this mechanism is also the
decisive one in pdophilia.' To this we will now add: basically this object choice in
heterosexual persons also represents a homosexual type, in which the woman, chosen in
accordance with narcissistic object choice, is usually fantasied together with a great
man, a father figure (whom the person himself represents); in empathy with the woman
the man thus unconsciously is loved homosexually. Always such fantasies are
combined with the idea of mutual protection: the little woman is rescued by the great
man in actuality, the latter by the former in magical fashion.
A paper by Spitz on the infantile woman14 likewise explains the choice of small love
objects in need of help on the basis of a narcissistic type of object choice. We are here
concerned, he writes, with men who in their childhood were brought up by their






mothers more or less openly as girls; such a tendency toward feminization in boys is
strengthened by the later and very sudden inhibition of aggressive tendencies; if there is
an older sister with whom the boy can identify himself, the eventuation in the
narcissistic object choice described is facilitated.
Thus Spitz explains the
hermaphroditic nature of the 'child-woman', and believes that it is connected with
socially conditioned changes in educational norms, that this type of choice of love
object is currently more prevalent than formerly; he does not recognize, however, that
these women represent not only the man himself who loves them but, in particular, his
penis. In the way in which the charm of such figures is

14Spitz, Ren: Ein Beitrag zum Problem der Wandlung der Neurosenform (Die
infantile Frau und ihr Gegenspieler). Imago, XIX, 1933.
- 313 generally described one invariably finds a suggestion of their phallic nature. They are
phallus girls, as in the fantasy of the transvestites described above.
V
Recently, in the analysis of a male patient, I was given the opportunity of a glimpse into
the genesis of a totally different region of fantasy which at the same time seems to me to
facilitate the understanding of the phallus girlnamely, the nature of the clown and of
slapstick comedy.
This was a patient with a distinct predilection for clowning, for grotesque humor of the
American kind, and so on. Although he had a totally different profession, his favorite
fantasy was that of appearing as a cabaret comic or even outright as a clown. There was
no doubt that these fantasies were a matter of 'wooing exhibitionism'; he wanted to
impress by his appearance, and wanted to be loved for his clowning ability. The
problem was: what gave this specific form to his exhibitionism?
It seems to us that with this question we approach the problem of a certain specific
neurosis of childhood. There is a type of child who invariably seeks to entertain his
playmates or adults by jokes of the most varied kind, and who continually plays the
clown, the Punchinello. Such children are apparently those whose self-esteem is
threatened, whose self-awareness is only restored when they can make others laugh at
them. While such children at first are usually successful in this attempt because they
are frequently very funny, one gradually realizes that we are concerned here with a
neurosis, and that these children could in no wise act differently.
The exhibiting of one's comic qualities gives the impression of being a substitute. It
looks as though (and the analysis of the patient mentioned above confirmed this) the
children wished originally to exhibit something else, something more serious, and as
though their clowning were saying: 'As long as I am not taken seriously anyway, I want






to have at least this success, of making people laugh at me'.
exhibitingone is tempted to say, instead of the exhibiting

Instead of a great

- 314 of an erected penisthey 'at least' exhibit something else. Since the substitute success
which they achieve consists of their being laughed at, it seems as though they were
striving to make a virtue of necessity, as though what prevented the original 'more
serious' exhibiting were the fear of being ridiculed. The formula is roughly as follows:
'I want to exhibitI am afraid of being laughed at for doing so. Therefore I shall
exhibit in such a way that you will laugh, that I shall impress you in spite thereof, so
that being laughed at is in itself a success. You who laugh at me shall see that he whom
you laugh at possesses nevertheless a secret greatness.' Of what does this greatness
consist? When one analyzes the words and acts of clowns and slapstick comedians, two
seemingly contradictory features emerge:
a.
Phallic features: the traditional garb of clowns itself contains many phallic
features. The relationships between clown and dwarf are manifold, but the phallic
symbolism of the dwarf hardly needs amplification. I will remind you only of the
analysis of Gulliver by Ferenczi, who emphasized the phallic symbolism of all those
figures who utilize the equation body = penis, and are associated with the fantasy of
eating and being eaten.15
b.
Pregenital features of various kinds: one has only to witness a clown act in any
circus or to attend the performance of a great clown such as Grock, for example, to
perceive that a large part of the effect of clowns consists of their more or less disguised
expression of the otherwise forbidden tendencies characterizing infantile sexuality. The
more these actually projected pregenital tendencies are covered by an sthetic faade
which tempts us to the 'premium of laughter', the more we attribute to such slapstick
comics the character of real art.16 The anal-sadistic element seems herein to play an
especially prominent rle. It would seem that slapstick belongs under the rubric of
sadomasochism: beatings are constantly administered. In

15Ferenczi, Sandor: Gulliver Fantasies. Int. J. Psa., IX, 1928, p. 283.

16Cf. Freud: Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious. In, Basic Writings of Sigmund
Freud. Trans. by A. A. Brill. New York: Modern Library, 1938.
17Apparently the author refers to The Celebrated Jumping Frog by Mark Twain. (Tr.)
- 315 such sadism, concealed as it is by clowning, one must take cognizance of two things:
first, the striving of the clown, whose original wish it was to exhibit 'seriously', to
revenge himself secretly for the ridicule to which he is exposed (and one may here
recall the numerous legends and stories in which court jesters, dwarfs, and similar






figures who are the object of laughter unexpectedly obtain a frightful revengeas for
example in the story of The Jumping Frog of E. A. Poe17); and second, one justifiably
thinks of a regression engendered by the circumstance that an original piece of ridicule
has disabused the hero with regard to his phallicism. With this second point we arrive
at the following general interpretation: exhibition is here invoked in a specific manner
in which phallic and pregenital features are combined with each other. This is
apparently to be understood as follows. A phallic exhibiting which must be repressed is
replaced by a pregenital exhibiting (which due to its genesis still retains phallic
features), going hand in hand with fantasies of omnipotence: 'I am small, it is true; you
laugh, but in spite of my small size I am omnipotent. If my penis is too small, well
then, I am in my whole person a penis which you must still respect!'
The pleasure of the child prodigy in exhibiting is apparently related to this. The patient
discussed above, who gave her father the bear talisman, was admired in her childhood
as a child prodigy. The motive in common is the 'greatness of the little one'. Here
clown and prodigy completely merge in the tradition of the dwarf. The small child, who
because of its small size feels despised or castrated, fantasies itself in toto as a penis, in
order to compensate in this way for the narcissistic injury involved.
We return to our specific theme with the attempt to demonstrate that such phallic
figures as clowns, prodigies, and dwarfs are frequently fantasied specifically as a 'girl'.
The patient with the predilection for slapstick had a remarkably inconsistent attitude
toward women. Either he despised
- 316 them as relatively insignificant compared to the significance of the psychological
problems discussed among men; or else, he defended the rights of women in a
suffragette spirit. These two alternating attitudes (the motives of this alternation were
analytically most interesting) were mutually contradictory, and yet had something in
common: the 'differentness' of women is denied in both cases; in the one case in the
attempt to repress women altogether, in the other in denying their individuality. As an
advocate of women's rights the patient was ever concerned with showing in an
exhibitionistic way how well informed he was on matters feminine, how little different
girls really were from him, etc. Thus his feminine identification became clear, 'I am
myself a girl', an identification which found expression also in woman-despising
homosexuality, and which in early childhood had provided an escape from his castration
anxiety: 'In order not to become like a woman, I act as though I were myself a woman,
and futhermore act as though women were no different from men'.
If in him the wish, 'I want to exhibit my penis', was inhibited by a fear of humiliation,
on a deeper level by castration anxiety, it found a substitute in the idea: 'I want to
exhibit myself as a slapstick comedian (as the pregenital phallus)', and likewise in the
idea: 'I want to exhibit myself as a girl (as the female phallus)'. He fantasied himself






not only as a cabaret artist but occasionally also as a female cabaret singer, and in this
respect is reminiscent of the transvestite (observed by Hirschfeld) who initiated his
transvestite practices by appearing as a female trick shooterthus a phallic womanin
vaudeville.18 As such a pregenital, or female, phallus he wanted to be admiredabove
all, certainly by men. His competitive relationship to other men was outspokenly
libidinized: he liked to attack them in various ways, yet always needed their reasurance
that they did not take the attack seriously but regarded it in a 'sporting' manner, as a sort
of love act, somewhat in the manner in which the competitive urinating of little boys
wherein similarly one participant tries to outdo the otherhas

18Hirschfeld, Magnus: Die Transvestiten. Berlin, 1910 (Case 5).

- 317 a homosexual character. Thus all the details described had as their purpose the
eliminating of a deep castration fear. To such a purpose was also to be ascribed the
feminine identification: 'I am a girl, let me be loved as one, but let me not need to be
afraid'. As in the case of the transvestite mentioned at the beginning, the phallic woman
whom the patient enacted was here too regarded as a phallic figure as a whole (slapstick
comedian), but here it was possible to recognize that this fantasy of the phallus girl was
preceded by an injury to phallic exhibitionism, on the occasion of which the patient
developed his deep castration fear. Of this injury to phallic exhibitionism we were
given in the analysis a few screen memories, without our being able to ascertain their
specific historical character. The fantasy of the phallus girl is a substitute for the phallic
exhibition which is inhibited by castration anxiety, and is composed of the two kinds of
'castration denial': 'I keep my penis by acting as though I were in fact a girl', and 'girls
are really no different from myself'.
VI
Finally before discussing the general significance of the figure of the phallus girl, I
should like to cite a fragment from the analysis of another male patient in order to
emphasize still another trait characterizing this figure.
It is the case of a man who through an unhappy marriage saved himself in masochistic
fashion from a neurosis, but at the same time had left many of his possibilities and gifts
unutilized. It was not difficult to see that he atoned with his whole life for an unknown
guilt. This guilt, stemming from his infantile sexuality, was concentrated in shame over
an enuresis of some years' duration which persisted past his tenth year. His (inhibited)
ambition pointed to the strength of his urethral erotism; his exhibitionistic joy over
small achievements (he denied himself large ones) had the unconscious meaning:
'Look, today I can actually use the chamber pot!' The bringing into consciousness of his
guilt feelings gave rise at first to a depression during which the patient wept a good
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deal. After holding himself in check and keeping his eyes closed to his lot in life over
the space of many years, this relaxation was greatly welcomed, and the analyst
repeatedly urged the patient not to be ashamed, but to allow himself to weep whenever
he felt like doing so. After a time, however, it became obvious that the patient was
beginning to abuse this invitation. He wept in the analyst's presence in a masochistic
manner. What was the meaning of this sudden abundant flood of tears? The patient
now no longer wept solely over his fate, but became sentimental and allowed the tears
to flow whenever he thought of something 'touching', whenever a 'good' deed or the like
was the subject mentioned. His moral masochism had much of the character of the
'rescue fantasy'. His unhappy marriage he continued for the sake of his poor wife; he
had a vocation in which he was able to 'help the poor'; in short, the 'good' man, over
whose 'goodness' he shed tears, was himself. His main fantasy ran thus: the poor little
Cinderella that is himself must suffer much and is never understood, but at last comes
one who understands him and therewith releases his tears. Dreams and fantasies then
showed further that 'understanding' really meant 'caressing'. The patient had been
rachitic as a child, had been obliged to rest a good deal, and had been made to feel that
he was a burden to his humbly situated family. The neurosis consisted in his attempts to
work out the aggressions thus aroused, to make a redeeming Christ out of the persecuted
Cinderella. His longing was: 'If I suffer much, someone will come at last who will
caress me, and then I must weep', and he sought in the environment a person whom he
would caress and allow to weep, in the same way as he wanted it done for him. When
he had reached this point in the analysis, he began a new affair with a poor girl for
whom he felt pity, and developed ejaculatio prcox. The analysis of this new symptom
now brought certainty regarding something already suspected:
the weeping
corresponded to urinating. A poor child (a poor girl) was to be caressed until it wet
itselfthis a beneficial release with no guilt. There now remained no doubt about who
the poor child was to whom this was supposed
- 319 to happen, and a dream expressed this clearly: his own penis. The urethral fixation of
the patient was passive-phallic: 'I want to be touched passively on the genitals. Let
someone caress my poor little penis, so that it gets wet and is allowed to get wet!' This
episode seems worth narrating because it is purely typical that the love which the man
directs toward the phallus girl is passive-hallic and urethral.
VII
In connection with the phallic figures which Ferenczi described in his paper on
Gulliver,19 he overlooked the fact that a remarkable number of these at the same time
represent girls. He writes: 'One of my male patients recalls having used a small female
creation of fantasy in his youthful masturbation fantasies, which he always carried in his
pocket and took out from time to time in order to play with it'. This was the phallus
fantasied as a girl. Furthermore, Gulliver encounters the giant women who despite their






feminine nature manifest clear evidences of the symbolism of erectionand one recalls
too the frequent fairy tales of giant girls. Naturally one does not overlook the fact that
giant women also represent the adult mother, by comparison with whom the little child
feels so small; but it is Ferenczi himself who describes why in all these fantasies the
giant, or the dwarf, represents also a penis.
Once one has become aware of the fantasy of the phallus girl, one finds in literature the
most varied representations of it. Steff Bornstein has called my attention to the fact that
it would be worthwhile in this regard, for example, to investigate the creation of Bettina
von Arnim and her relation to Goethe. The fantasy of being given over femininely to a
person great and powerful, at the same time to be united with him so indissolubly as to
be a very part of him, together with the idea that one is moreover the most important
part without which the mighty one would be powerlessthis is certainly to be found
also as characterizing a particular type of religious devotee. One thinks for example of
Rilke's lines:

19Ferenczi, Sandor: Gulliver Fantasies. Int. J. Psa., IX, 1928, p. 283.

- 320 What will you do, God, when I die,
When I, your pitcher, broken, lie?
When I, your drink, go stale or dry?
I am your garb, the trade you ply,
You lose your meaning, losing me.20

Or of the lines of Angelus Silesius:

I am as great as God: He is as I as small;
He over me or I under Him can never be at all.
And:
I know that without me God cannot live a moment;
Were I to perish, He could but give up the ghost.
This reference to the 'feminine' lyrics produced by men engenders the thought that other
frequently occurring fantasy figures might also be connected with the phallus girl. One
thinks for example of the figure of the 'female soldier' which appears in so many
variants in literature. It may be objected that such girlish soldiers or soldierly girls
represent 'the woman with the penis', and that this by no means necessarily implies that
they must represent the penis itself. In the first place one is obliged to perceive in them






simply objects of the latent homosexuality of all men, regarding whose object choice
Freud with justice wrote: 'There can be no doubt that a large proportion of male inverts
retain the mental quality of masculinity and that what they look for in their sexual
object are in fact feminine mental traits. If this were not so, how would it be possible to
explain the fact that male prostitutes who offer themselves to invertstoday just as they
did in ancient timesimitate women in all externals of their clothing and behavior?
In this instance the sexual object is not someone of the same sex but someone who
combines the characters of both sexes; there is, as it were, a compromise between an
impulse that seeks for a man and one that seeks for a woman, while it remains a
paramount condition that

20Translated by Babette Deutsch, in Poems from the Book of Hours. New York: New
Directions, 1941. (Tr.)
21Freud: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Trans. by James Strachey. London:
Imago Publishing Co., 1949, pp. 2223.
22Freud: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Trans. by James Strachey. London:
Imago Publishing Co., 1949, p. 23 fn.
- 321 the object's body (i.e., genitals) shall be masculine.'21 'Moreover, we have frequently
found that alleged inverts have been by no means insusceptible to the charms of women,
but have continually transposed the excitation aroused by women on to a male
object.'22 Correct as this is, it does not explain the circumstance that our 'female
soldier' so often appears as a 'page', i.e., as primarily a helpless little fellow inseparably
devoted to a great person, in order in magical fashion to help or to save him. Such girl
or half-girl figures are no different from other phallic symbols, which, despised at first
on account of their smallness, turn out later to be powerful, and become the most
important helper of the hero, much like the small helping animals in fairy tales or like
dwarfs.
If these phallus girls are omnipotent in consequence of their phallic nature, it is also true
that they can misuse their omnipotence. The 'fear of retaliation' felt by some fathers
toward their narcissistically (as phallus) loved daughters certainly belongs here.
Thus, what we encounter here is a fantasy in which male and female narcissism, male
and female pleasure in exhibiting, are condensed. In such fantasies, penis envy is
condensed with her femininity in the woman, penis pride with his castration anxiety in
the man.
VIII
Let us emphasize, finally, that the fantasy of phallus girls bears a close relationship to
two hitherto little understood forms of perversion. It will already have been noticed that






many of the examples cited here are closely related to masochistic fantasies, in
particular to masochistic fantasies of the type usually designated as those of complete
sexual dependence. This sexual dependence consists of the dependent person's feeling
indissolubly united with the person on whom he is dependent, able to do nothing
against, or indeed without, his willrepresenting,
- 322 as it were, a part of him. One thinks of the type of religious devotee mentioned above,
whose devotion is associated with the fantasy that even God would be helpless without
him. It would still have to be inquired whether the fantasy is not likewise present in all
cases of such sexual dependence; that one has not only become a weak, helpless part of
the person one is dependent on, but also the reverse: his most important part; that the
person in question is now at the same time in (magical) dependence on the one
dependent on him.
Frances Deri has expressed the opinion that this is in fact the pathognomonic
mechanism of sexual dependence, and we can only find ourselves in agreement with
this opinion.23
That which is termed 'sodomy', the sexual love for animals, is probably something of a
very different kind. One type thereof, however, according to analytic experience seems
to stem from the fact that the person concerned has remained fixated at the stage of
partial love, and sees in animals penis symbols. The unconscious fantasies of 'infantile
totemism' which magically unite a human being with an animal species24 are certainly
not entirely based on the fact that the animal is fantasied as a part of one's own body, as
oneself in phallic form. But there are forms of the love of animals in which the attitude
to the loved animal representing the penis is so completely identical with the love of a
man for a 'child wife', chosen according to the narcissistic type of object choice, that we
should like to include this type of animal love here.
One concluding remark may anticipate possible misunderstandings: in cases in which
in relation to the penis introjection and eating fantasies play a particular rle, or in other
words, wherever the symbolic equation body = penis holds,

23Josine Mller, describing a case of dependence, wrote as early as 1925: 'She fantasied
herself as being herself the penis of this exalted father, and thus his most precious and
most important part'. (Frher Atheismus und Charakterfehlentwicklung. Int. Ztschr. f.
Psa., XI, 1925.)
24Freud: Totem and Taboo. Chapter IV, The Infantile Recurrence of Totemism. In, The
Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. New York: Modern Library, 1938.
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this relation to the penis stems from pregenital antecedents. Likewise, the phallus girl
is, generally speaking, not only a penis but also a child, feces (content of the mother's
body) and milk. It is the introject, and one which is again projected. The penis thus is
only the final member of the series of introjects. It was primarily my intention at this
time to lay emphasis upon this final member of the series.

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